


Our Deal

by jouissant



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Bad Sex, Blow Jobs, Bruises, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Facials, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Marking, Masturbation, Phone Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Suit Porn, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-01-12 23:20:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 77,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1204288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Berlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Berlinstagram](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1060196), though I don't think you need to have read it for this to make sense.

After Berlin, the press tour gets a lot more interesting. 

Chris likes it, that feeling of nursing a secret. The way late nights and airplane rides and the endless ebb and flow of questions about the movie have taken on a language of their own, even moreso than they usually do with Zach. He’s completely exhausted, of course, but it’s not the wrung-out-rag feeling he usually associates with travel, more like the achy and satisfying kind of fatigue that comes from vigorous activity and plenty of it. 

Because, look, Chris tries. He tries to take care of himself on the press tour. He tries to drink lots of water and eat egg whites and go to the gym and go to bed early with cucumbers on his eyes or whatever. But Chris is only human, after all, and he’s an actor with a big new summer movie, and so people want to buy him drinks and dinner and throw him--well, them--parties with ridiculous themes, awful blue drinks and cakes shaped like planets. 

“It’s a bit distasteful, really,” says Simon, poking at a red velvet slice of Vulcan with his fork. Chris has to think for a second before he remembers that in JJ-land, there is no Vulcan anymore. Simon looks a little broken up about it. Chris just needs another drink. 

He runs into Zach at the bar, or rather Zach sidles up to Chris while he’s waiting for his gin and tonic and shoves his hand into Chris’s suit pocket, sheaths Chris’s index finger with his own hand and squeezes in a way that recalls...other things, and somehow makes simple handholding impossibly hot. But it’s Zach, and with Zach everything simple is complicated again. Not that Chris is complaining. 

Zach’s hand retreats into his own pocket. He holds up his empty glass of wine to the bartender. “Thanks,” he calls. Then, to Chris _sotto voce_ : “What are you doing after?” 

Chris’s face heats up, because of course it does. “What are you doing?” 

“Asked you first, Pine.” 

Chris exhales. “I was going to try and get some sleep,” he ventures lamely. “Big day tomorrow.” 

Zach shrugs. “Suit yourself.” And then he’s gone, melting back into the party, but not before he’s insinuated a hand beneath Chris’s jacket, raked his nails across the span of Chris’s back over his dress shirt. 

It’s late, isn’t it? It feels late. Zoe left half an hour ago in a swirl of perfume and couture, per usual. Alice is across the room, head thrown back, mouth a bright red slick of lipstick, and Simon is communing with his sad slice of cake. Chris makes a command decision. Yeah, it’s late. He downs his drink in two swallows and leaves the party without saying his goodbyes, and makes it upstairs to fumble with his keycard before he hears the soft _ding_ of the elevator. The hair stands up on the back of his neck and he has a horror movie urge to hurry up with the card, get inside and lock the door. But then Zach’s behind him, lips against Chris’s neck. 

“Good party,” he says, breath florid with wine. 

“It was okay,” Chris says, and turns around. Zach leans in, arms braced on either side of Chris’s head against the closed door. He’s staring at Chris’s mouth. 

“Getting better,” Zach says. He leans in. Chris thinks Zach’s going to kiss him, but instead he nips at the underside of Chris’s jaw, takes advantage of his proximity to slide a hand up Chris’s waist and yank his shirttail out of his pants. Zach seems to like messing Chris up a little, and he likes it even more when Chris is dressed up. Or so Chris has noticed, anyway. Now that Chris’s shirt is free, Zach works on his fly. Chris watches the elevator. 

“You sure you want to--” 

“Why not? You liked it well enough before.” Zach cups Chris through his slacks. “And you like it now.” 

Dammit. Trust Chris’s dick to sell him out every time. Yeah, he does like it now, just like he likes it every other time Zach’s gotten drunk and handsy, sometimes even less privately than this. He’s 99% sure Zoe got an eyeful the other night, but god bless her, she hasn’t said anything about it. He remembers Zach in Berlin, after the club, mortified and apologetic. He tries and fails to reconcile that Zach with this one, the one who’s got the hook and eye on Chris’s pants open, whose evil evil hands have slipped in and are currently liberating Chris from his briefs. 

“Zach--” 

Zach sinks down onto his knees, drunk and wobbly and clutching at Chris’s legs, but there’s nothing hesitant or off-kilter about the way he takes Chris into his mouth right there in the hallway. The hallway that’s way, way too brightly lit all of a sudden, and if Zach wasn’t so fucking good at this maybe Chris would have a snowball’s chance in hell of extricating his head from his ass and getting them the fuck inside the room. Zach hums around Chris’s dick, leaning in and taking him all the way in, as far in as his open fly allows. 

“Shit,” Chris groans, his hands finding the back of Zach’s head. He shifts his weight backwards against the door, lets his eyes flutter closed, because it’s bright and he’s drunk and Zach’s mouth feels so, so good. Zach reaches around and gropes Chris’s ass with both hands, pushing him forward, deeper into Zach’s practiced throat. Chris feels weak in the knees. 

The elevator dings. 

Later, he’s not sure how the hell he manages it, just that he practically drags Zach up by the collar with one hand and slides the keycard home with the other, and the neat little click of the lock coming open is the sweetest sound Chris has ever heard. He hears the flare of conversation flow into the hallway just as the door slams closed on it. He hears blood pounding double time in his ears, Zach laughing with a hand pressed to his mouth. 

“You’re sure into living on the edge,” Chris says. 

“Hmm,” Zach says. “Yeah, it’s that extra frisson of danger that really gets my dick hard.” 

“Frisson,” says Chris. “I like it.” 

“I like you,” says Zach. 

It’s as close to an admission as Chris has heard from him yet, so he guesses it’s okay to set aside the issue of Zach’s semipublic sex thing for the time being. He abandons his pants, congratulating himself on having enough forethought to drape them over a chair along with his jacket instead of just wadding them on the floor. Zach comes over then, taking hold of either side of Chris’s unbuttoned buttondown and kissing him, openmouthed and sloppy. Zach kisses like he fucks, rough and toothy and a little sweet, and Chris isn’t exactly surprised to find himself itchy and aching for it already. Zach shoves him back toward the bed, and Chris goes, lets himself flop back onto the mattress trust-fall style. 

Zach clambers on top of him and grins, raking his hair out of his eyes. He’s still fully clothed, and he eyefucks Chris blatantly as he works his tie loose, tugs it off and tosses it to the side of the bed. His pants are rough and prickly against Chris’s bare skin, and Zach grinds himself down on Chris’s crotch like he knows it. 

“Take your clothes off,” Chris says. 

“No,” Zach says. “Now turn over.” 

Chris huffs a sigh, halfway annoyed at Zach’s blitzed imperiousness, but he does it anyway. He groans as his dick drags against the comforter, shifting a little bit so he gets the angle right. The comforter is one of those borderline gross synthetic fabric deals that you probably wouldn’t want to look at under a blacklight even in this nice a hotel, and when he jerks his hips into it he’s met with the same infuriating prickle as against Zach’s fucking skinny wool-blend trousers. It feels good anyway. 

“Look at you hump the mattress, Pine, Jesus,” Zach says. He’s touching himself; Chris can tell from the roughness in his voice. 

“You created a monster,” Chris says. “You said so yourself.” 

Zach runs his hand over Chris’s ass. “I’ll say. Where’s your--” 

“Bathroom,” Chris says, and then Zach’s gone, the bed bouncing upwards as if bereft by his suddenly missing weight. It occurs to Chris that he’s not going to turn over, just lie here prone on the bed and wait for Zach to return. When he does, he makes a small sound of approval, as if he was expecting to have to manhandle Chris back into position. He kneads Chris’s ass with one hand; Chris can hear the slurp and squelch of what he assumes is lube being squeezed onto the other. Because yeah, Chris Pine has now officially added lube to his toiletry shopping list. (“KY, but the gel, not the liquid. Just...take it from me, you don’t want a whole lot of liquid up in there unless it’s--well, you know.”) He guesses stranger things have happened. 

Zach trails his fingers over Chris’s hole. “Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s cold.” 

Chris whimpers and shifts. The interplay of sensation connected to this area of his anatomy--well, he’s still getting used to it. Zach circles with slippery fingers, his free hand on the small of Chris’s back. Chris breathes and focuses on the warm splay of Zach’s fingers as the other set presses and stretches, working gently but determinedly inside. 

“Ah,” Zach breathes. “I can’t get over how hot this is; you just...you fucking shudder when I--” 

He crooks his finger, pushing a little deeper and then it’s case in point: Chris moans and grabs a handful of comforter, jerking against the bed reflexively. It feels so weird, so weird and so good, and he wants Zach to stop and he wants more and the worst part is that Chris is pretty sure Zach knows all of this. Knows all about him, and worse yet, gets off on it. He slides his finger most of the way out, then corkscrews back in. It’s torturous, is what it is, and as usual he’s torn between wanting it gone and wanting more. 

“Zach,” Chris says, his breath humid against the bed. “Please.” He’s still not sure which one he means, but Zach...Zach will know. 

“You want some more?” Zach’s voice is soft, and there’s that strange sweetness again, the warm way he can feel Zach’s eyes on him. His fingers flex against Chris’s back. Chris nods, and he hears Zach suck in a breath. 

“Yeah,” Zach says. “Yeah, okay.” He presses a second finger into Chris. It slides in easier this time, and Chris sighs out a breath. The weird is starting to recede, and if he could only touch himself he’s pretty sure it would be replaced with good completely. He thinks about working a hand between his belly and the bed. He goes so far as to scootch it under his body, feeling the slip of his skin and the drag of the fabric under him, but Zach’s onto him. 

“Baby, c’mon,” Zach says, skating a hand down Chris’s arm. “Don’t do that.” The words are just shy of chiding, and they pluck at Chris somehow. Whether it’s the endearment or something else--that subtle hint of less-than-pleased, maybe--he’s not sure, but he feels...he feels kind of crappy about it, and he’s at a loss to say exactly why. Maybe it’s the booze, he thinks. Chris has always been kind of an emotional drunk, after all, and Zach’s always been kind of an asshole. 

He rests his head against a crossed arm, moans into his own skin. It feels like Zach is carving into him somehow, making space. And it starts to happen, just like it happens every time they do this--slowly, gradually, the space opens up inside Chris all empty and wanting, until before he knows it he’s aching for it all over again. He pushes back against Zach’s fingers, letting the resultant moan cant up into a whine. 

Zach laughs darkly. “Now what could you possibly want, Christopher?” 

“Zach, goddammit…” 

He laughs harder. “Pushy, pushy. Okay, give me a second.” 

He leans to one side. Chris can feel the mattress dip as he does so, can hear him fidgeting with the condom, fisting himself with lube. Chris wants to see, looks back over his shoulder and catches a glimpse of Zach, still fully clothed but now decidedly rumpled. It doesn’t look especially comfortable, but if Zach is anything, he’s deliberate. If he wanted to be undressed, he would be. He leans down closer to Chris and presses a kiss to Chris’s shoulder, the bedside lamp casting his shadow long over Chris’s body. Zach slides a hand under Chris’s hip and tugs suggestively. Chris gets up onto his hands and knees, and Zach gets up from the bed altogether, leaving Chris at loose ends for a moment before he feel steadying hands on his hips and the head of Zach’s dick nudging between his cheeks. 

“Fuck,” Chris says, half expecting some kind of tart remark along the lines of “that’s what I’m trying to do, asshole,” but it doesn’t come. Instead, Zach grips Chris’s hipbone and presses into him. Chris can’t help it; he cries out at the stretch of it, that heart-poundy animal sensation of nope nope nope wrong threatening to overwhelm him until a warm hand reaches around the jut of his hip, Zach’s long fingers closing around Chris’s dick and it feels so good he could cry. 

“Yeah,” Zach sighs, sinking into him. 

Chris clutches at nothing, fabric slipping through his fingers. “Fuck,” he says again. Zach runs his hands over Chris’s sides, stills and lets Chris work himself back, driving Zach deeper as he does so. 

“Wait,” Chris says. “Don’t--just wait for a second, let me--” 

“Relax, Pine. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Don’t move yet.” 

Zach laughs again, soft. “Okay.” 

Chris lets his head fall forward onto his arms, feeling like Zach’s grip on his hips is the only thing keeping him from flopping forward onto the bed. “Just give me a minute. And...talk to me, okay?” 

Zach sighs. “You look so good like this,” he says, voice low and rough. “All laid out for me. I could just...I could just fuck you and zip up and walk out of here, and no one would ever know.” 

Not exactly romantic, Chris thinks. He wonders if that’s what Zach likes, the transience of it, of this thing between them. Zip up, pack up, fly off to another city. Like this--whatever this is--exists in some liminal space between time zones, in the wee small hours when the buzz starts to fade and everyone else has gone home. 

He always was kind of an emotional drunk. Zach always was kind of an asshole. And it’s hot, Chris guesses, in the abstract. Getting Chris in bed, not quite virginal but not too far from it, from Zach’s perspective anyway. 

“That what you want?” he asks. “To fuck and run?” 

Zach’s quiet for a second. Then, “What? No. Chris--” 

“Not...not now,” Chris says. “Just do it, okay?” 

Zach makes an exasperated noise, digging his fingers into Chris’s hip. Chris can feel the scrape of Zach’s pants against the bare skin of his ass, feels Zach pull out slowly and then sink back in all the way. “Ah,” Zach says, and Chris tries to imagine his face: eyes screwed shut, nose and cheeks a little blotchy, the endless five o’clock shadow. 

“God, you feel good,” Zach says. 

Chris hums, nods his assent, because Zach feels good too, whether or not he’s somehow managed to piss Chris off in the middle of fucking him. It’s been a weird night, Chris concludes. Then Zach scratches down Chris’s back, from the nape of his neck to his tailbone, which is one distinct advantage to getting fucked by a tall dude who’s standing up. Chris actively decides to stop fucking thinking so much. He leans down, dropping an elbow to the mattress, reaching for his dick to swat at Zach’s hand and set his own rhythm. Zach keeps his hand on Chris’s hip, all the better to hold Chris steady. Chris thinks back to the first time, the way he told Zach to keep going, to fuck him harder. Zach’s taken it to heart; there hasn’t been a whole lot of gentleness since, but Chris doesn’t mind. He’ll be sore tomorrow, he thinks, sitting in another uncomfortable chair and trying not to lean too close to Zach. 

“Come on,” he says. “Make me feel it.” 

Zach moans at that, and Chris feels him shift a leg up on to the bed, leaning on one knee to drive his weight forward full bore into Chris. He has the slightly hysterical thought that Zach’s going to tear his pants. Zach moves lower now, his body hot and heavy over Chris’s, his shirt damp and his sweat dripping onto Chris’s bare back. Chris closes his eyes, jerking himself in clumsy time to Zach’s thrusts, reaching back and fumbling for Zach’s leg. Somehow, he intuits what Chris’s flailing hand motions are supposed to mean, and Zach buries himself balls-deep and lets Chris fuck back against him. It’s just shy of too much, and Chris feels like he could split open. He’s so close he wants to climb out of his own skin. 

“That’s it,” Zach says, his voice gravel-scrape dry at Chris’s ear. “You’re so fucking full, come on and come for me, come on--” 

“God _dammit_ ,” Chris says, shooting over his hand, the bed. 

Zach cries out then, a staccato _ah-ah-ah_ , his fingers twitching at Chris’s sides. He flops on top of Chris in a sweaty pile, veering far enough to the side to kiss the corner of Chris’s mouth. After a minute, he slides out carefully, one hand on the condom. He dispenses with it and he rolls them over to lie on their sides, cupping Chris’s face with both hands and kissing him soundly. It takes Chris aback, and despite his earlier flare of anger at Zach he can’t stop the way it makes his heart leap. 

Zach sucks languidly at Chris’s lower lip, pulls back and smiles at him. “I can’t believe I kept my clothes on. It was hot, though, right?” 

Chris sighs. His throat feels like it might close up. He runs a thumb over Zach’s bristly cheekbone. “What are we doing?” he says softly.

It takes a second, but predictably, Zach’s smile fades. He sits up, looking down at his ruined outfit with distaste, and begins unbuttoning his shirt. “Really?” he asks. “We’re doing this now?” 

Chris sits up and scans the room for clothing. His briefs are over by the door. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says, clambering off of the bed. “I just...this is becoming a pattern, okay? We go out and we get drunk and we end up in someone’s room, and I’m just wondering--” He bends down to retrieve his underwear, acutely aware of Zach’s eyes on him. “I’m just wondering where it ends.” 

Zach has stripped off his clothes even as Chris is reassembling his, and now he stands and stretches, scrubbing a hand over his face and shaking his head. “I need a shower,” he says. “Can I--” 

“Um, sure,” Chris says. “Zach--” 

“Shower.” 

He makes for the bathroom and closes the door behind him. Chris sinks back down onto the bed. When he hears the shower start to run, he picks up the remote and turns the TV on.

***

Zach refuses to engage Chris in any kind of meaningful conversation until he’s emerged from his shower, shrugged into a pair of Chris’s pajama pants, and procured a cup of coffee from the shitty in-room coffeepot. He takes a sip and grimaces, gestures to the balcony.

Chris leads the way, palming a pack of cigarettes and sliding the door open, stepping out into the cool of very late spring. They’re not up so high, the seventh floor, so the wee-hours bustle of central London seems held at just the slightest remove. Chris leans over the railing and watches a line of cabs on the street below. His back is to the doorway, so he feels rather than sees Zach come out in his wake and fold himself into a chair. 

“Can I get one of those?” 

Chris nods, turning around. He slides a cigarette out of the pack and hands it to Zach, who places it between his lips and leans forward, dark eyes wide and expectant. There’s something particularly intimate, Chris thinks, about lighting someone’s cigarette. He flicks his lighter and Zach’s face blooms red in the blue dark. He blinks into the glow and takes a drag, inhaling slowly and deliberately. He plucks the cigarette delicately from his mouth, holds it with scissored fingers. Smoke curls in the air between them.

“So, where were we?” 

“Well--” 

“Oh, that’s right,” Zach says, grinning dangerously at Chris. “We were talking about the end of your--” 

“Come on, don’t--” 

“--your grand experiment.” 

Chris huffs a sigh. There’s nothing to say to that, really, which--now that he thinks about it-- was probably the point. He lights himself a smoke and takes a long drag, turning back out to face the night. One of the cabs peels itself out of line and makes a u-turn. Chris wonders what they even call u-turns in England. _Lorries_ , his brain supplies. Bad old joke. 

“You’re going to Cannes, right?” he asks. 

Zach’s quiet for a beat, maybe surprised that Chris isn’t taking the bait. “I am indeed going to Cannes.” 

“You excited?” 

“I guess? I’m just going to be running on fumes by the end of the summer. I’m already so fucking tired.” 

“So go to bed already,” Chris says. 

“I don’t mean right this _second_.” There’s a smile in his voice again, but it’s that dangerous sharkbite smile he wore at the bar downstairs, the one he wears every night before he takes Chris apart. 

Chris shrugs. “Whatever.” 

“Chris, it’s going to be fine. Soon enough, we’re going to stop living in each other’s pockets all the time and I’ll go back to New York and you’ll go shoot your princess movie and this’ll all just…dematerialize.” 

Chris turns around in time to see Zach waving his hand around like he’s trying to disperse something, smoke or a cloud of insects. The casualness of the gesture makes him angry, the unstudiedness of it, like it’s the kind of easy dismissal Zach’s applied to any number of nebulous non-relationships over the years. He sucks in another drag of tobacco, fills his lungs up with it. He pictures his poor abused alveoli. Well, it’s not Chris’s fault. They can take it up with Zachary Quinto, Our Lady of Incisive Dickishness.

“What if...what if I want to live in your pocket?” It comes out more wounded than he means it too. _Oh well_ , Chris thinks. He’s not exactly great at improv, and Zach had sounded so fucking nonchalant a second ago. 

Zach laughs. “Be my little portable Christopher? I kind of like that thought. Probably a little too much. Could I resize you at will?” 

Chris moves closer to Zach’s chair, drops down into a squat and reaches a hesitant hand toward Zach’s pajama-clad knee. Before he quite knows what he’s doing, he follows the hand with his head, so there’s just that couple inches of his own flesh and bone keeping him from resting his head in Zach’s lap. He hears Zach’s long exhale, feels him slump like he’s deflating, losing all that angry steam. Bad air, they’d have called it once. And then there’s a hand on Chris’s head, fingernails raking gently over his scalp and sending a warm, sparkling shower of sensation all the way down to Chris’s toes. 

“You make me feel,” Chris says to Zach’s feet. “So much.” 

“Chris...” 

There’s a lot in that word, warning and want and a whole host of implications Chris can’t begin to name. _Where are we?_ he wants to ask. _It feels like we’re between time somewhere_. 

Chris lifts his head, takes Zach’s hand off of it and sets it carefully on the arm of the chair. “I’m really fucking tired,” he says. “I’m going to go to bed.” 

Zach doesn’t stay. Chris thinks for a second he’s going to ask, but he just nods to Chris and pads off down the hall to his own room, a soft pile of evening wear under his arm. Chris strips off the comforter, wrinkling his nose at an offending wet spot in the middle. He gets into bed and drags the sheet up to his chin.

***

Chris feels better in the morning.

He usually does; even on his moodiest days he’s possessed of an incurably sunny disposition at baseline, plus there’s frankly not a lot that can’t be cured by a good night’s sleep and a full English. He consumes this last on the balcony in a vague effort to exorcise last night’s demons, like smudging with sage but tastier. He chases his final bite of grilled tomato with a wash of coffee and squints into the morning. Maybe he’ll go for a run later. His stomach burbles askance. Okay, maybe just a walk. 

There’s not a lot to do before the premiere tonight; he ends up staying in and lounging around, intermittently reading and watching bad TV and studiously not checking his phone. Before he knows it, it’s early evening and time to get ready. He takes longer than usual in the shower, still feeling a little greasy from breakfast, from the night before. He’s ready to roll with twenty minutes to spare and is sitting awkwardly on the bed in a full-body effort not to wrinkle. He’s staring at the newspaper without really absorbing anything, stomach starting to churn at the thought of the crowds. There’s a knock on the door. 

He knows who’s on the other side--who else would he open the door to but Zach, insinuating himself into Chris’s room like a cat. He looks Chris up and down and bites his lip. 

“Nice suit.” 

Chris cocks his head to the side, tests Zach’s remark for a hint of venom, but there is none, just Zach standing there in his own nice suit, not a hair out of place because 90% of his hair is gone and the other 10% is greased into submission. Not that Chris feels inappropriately hostile toward Zach’s hair, because that would be...weird. 

“Thanks,” he says. “You too.” 

It all happens really fast. That’s a lame excuse, but it’s what Chris is going to go with. Any of the alternatives require way too much thought about his dearth of resistance to Zach stepping close, reaching out and taking hold of Chris’s tie, wrapping it around his fucking hand once, twice and yanking Chris’s mouth a hairsbreadth from his own. 

“About last night,” Zach says. Chris watches his teeth, the way his mouth moves to form the words. 

“About last night,” Zach says again. “I--” 

He doesn’t make it any further, because Chris kisses him. 

Zach had obviously tried his level best to stalk into Chris’s room and take charge, but there’s no denying the way he sighs into the kiss now, and were Chris a less charitable person he probably wouldn’t be quite so charmed by it. He lets Zach back them up to the wall and shove his thigh between Chris’s legs. 

“We’re going to be late,” he says into Zach’s mouth. 

“I know.” 

He pulls Chris in again, and there’s a belabored metaphor here somewhere about Zach and planetary forces of gravity, dragging Chris inexorably into orbit. Zach has one hand caught in Chris’s tie and the other at the back of his neck, and Chris couldn’t escape if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t, except for the the fact that they’re going to be late. Zach grinds his thigh into Chris’s crotch, and Chris’s head spins at how fast his body redirects blood flow in response to the intrusion of his fucking black-clad gazelle leg. Zach has this capacity to wrap his body in ways Chris has yet to completely figure out, and he’s doing it now, draping himself around Chris like some kind of encroaching vine. His mouth is on Chris’s neck, and Chris has the distinct urge to mess up Zach’s fucking hair. But definitely just in the heat of the moment, not out of spite or anything. 

Zach gropes Chris over his pants, makes an indistinct growling noise. “Ah, fuck,” he says. “I always...you always make me want to fuck you so bad.” 

“Badly,” supplies Chris. 

...To which Zach growls again, drops to his knees, opens his mouth impossibly wide and fucking _bites_ at Chris’s dick through the heavy fabric of his suit. It doesn’t hurt much, but Chris yelps reflexively and scoots back anyway. Zach stands up in one fluid motion-- _sex panther_ , thinks Chris wildly--and drags the back of his hand over his mouth. 

“We’re going to be late,” Zach says, chest like a bellows. He’s really fucking hard in his pants and so help Chris, if he were not contractually obligated they would not be leaving this room. 

“Fuck!” Chris turns around and walks into the bathroom because if he doesn’t stop looking at Zach he’s going to lose it. He leans over the sink and splashes water on his face, staring at the porcelain as he lets the excess drip off. When he towels off and goes back into the bedroom, Zach is gone. Sitting in the middle of Chris’s bed is a white rectangular keycard. 

Night’s fallen, and the flashbulbs are like a blinding wall as Chris gets out of the car. He’s ferried along a narrow walkway fashioned from press on one side and crowd barriers on the other, gaggles of onlookers hanging over the metal fencing waving Sharpies, phones, and assorted signables. With an eye to self-preservation, he focuses on the press, answering a question about their last press tour using approximately one quarter of his brain. Another quarter is dumbstruck by a girl in pink shrieking at her friend over his right shoulder, and the remaining half is looking for Zach. 

When he shows up, Chris’s only saving grace is that the interviewer notices too, and Kirk and Spock’s mutual admiration society is blessedly more important than her question. But Chris can feel the gaze of the camera greenhouse hot as he turns, and so his “Great suit, man!” is simultaneously tempered and too bright. Zach beams big enough for both Chris and the interviewer, but his eyes are just for Chris, the quick head-to-toe flick they do that says _later._

_Later._

***

When Chris lets himself in to Zach’s room, the only light to speak of is the glow of the television. Zach is sprawled on the bed wearing Chris’s pj pants again.

“Sorry,” he says, plucking at the fabric. “I kinda stole them.”  
“It’s okay.”

“I wanted to rip that suit off of you,” Zach says, yawning. “Oh well.” 

Chris is wearing jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and a pair of sandals he’s lucky it’s too dark for Zach to see. He kicks them off and stretches out next to Zach on the bed. The TV is on mute. 

“What are you even doing?” he asks. 

“I was waiting for you. Wasn’t sure you were coming.” 

“You skipped out early, man,” Chris says. “Alice was concerned.” 

Zach’s face is blue in the glare of the screen. “Yeah, well,” he says. “You were right, yesterday. I needed a break.” 

Chris swallows. “Oh yeah?” 

Zach nods. “Chris, maybe--” 

Chris swallows again, harder this time, like there’s something he needs to get past. “No, yeah,” he says, as if vomiting out a mess of contradictory particles is going to clarify anything. “We can stop if you want. It’s totally fine.” 

“I don’t know what I want,” Zach says. “I just think...we’re heading back soon, so maybe--” 

“It’s totally fine. I get it.” 

Zach looks at him for a long time, chewing on a fingernail as if in contemplation. Then he drops his hand to Chris’s leg, scrapes over the dry skin bared by a hole in the knee of his jeans. He drops his head and kisses over the pale tracks his nails leave, licks across with the flat of his tongue. It’s such a strange gesture Chris has to fight the urge to giggle. 

Zach sits up and moves over Chris so he’s practically sitting in his lap. He leans in and kisses Chris’s cheek, his forehead, finally his mouth. There’s something slow and ritualistic to it, like Zach is memorizing him. Like it’s the last time, but Chris isn’t--he _isn’t_ going to think about that now. Now, everything moves like they’re underwater, the dreamy way Zach pulls Chris’s shirt up over his head and fiddles with the button fly on his jeans. 

“You and your fucking selvedge denim, Pine,” he mutters, before Chris shoves his hand away and does it himself. Then he’s lifting his hips so Zach can strip his jeans off, and Chris is hard for Zach already, has been since he walked in the room. He gasps as Zach gets his dick out, the waistband of his boxers catching on the head. Zach flicks his thumb over it, looking self- satisfied, then he settles out on the bed and drops his hands lower to spread Chris wide. 

Chris sighs and settles back against the pillows, twitching at the first ghost of hot breath across the crease where his thigh meets his ass. Zach slips his hands under Chris’s hips to jack him up, the better to eat you with my dear, and Chris should care way more than he does that he can’t stop himself from crying out when Zach makes good on the bite from earlier. Only it’s lower now, over Chris’s hole, and he licks away the sting of teeth afterwards. 

Chris lets his head fall back, lets his hand wander down across the flat of his stomach to the base of his dick. Zach doesn’t seem to have a problem with Chris touching himself tonight, so he sets a lazy pace to match Zach’s tongue. Chris’s mind wanders, colors unfurling behind his eyelids in the dark room, the flicker of the TV translated into reds and purples. Zach’s fingertips are in him now, or it feels like it, stretching him open so Zach can fuck Chris with his tongue. He thinks about lying here and letting Zach reach inside. 

_Have you ever fisted anyone? Because I saw this thing--_

Eye roll, scoff. _Oh my god, Chrisopher, oh my_ god. _If there was an eggplant involved, this all ends now._

But it doesn’t sound so ridiculous now, does it? Because maybe it’s the tenor of the moment; maybe it’s some kind of brain-scrambling electromagnetic interference from the television, but Chris feels like he’s floating, like Zach could do anything and he’d like it, love it, eat it up like the blind pleasure-seeking creature he is. 

He opens his eyes and Zach’s right there, eyes glassy black in the low light. His fingers slip out of Chris. “Can I?” 

Chris nods. He’s worried about what will happen if he looks too long, so he screws his eyes shut again and watches the phosphenes. Zach’s cursing at the condom wrapper and then he’s back, laying himself carefully over Chris and easing himself inside. 

“You need lube? Tell me,” Zach says. Chris shakes his head against the pillow, and Zach drops his own head to Chris’s shoulder, moving so slowly as to be imperceptible. Before Chris knows it, he’s deep inside and Chris can feel every jitter and breath in his guts. 

Zach’s face is so fucking close, Chris can’t actually see anything. There’s just his breath and the brush of brows and eyelashes and a tingle in the middle of Chris’s forehead.

“Chris, I--” 

Chris kisses the side of Zach’s nose. “We’re really going to do this now?” 

Zach laughs softly. “Point,” he says, and so they don’t. They move together in the dark and Chris lets himself drift again, and he doesn’t think any more about the fact that it’s the last time, doesn’t clutch at Zach’s ass to try and take him deeper and definitely doesn’t babble anything regrettable when he comes. 

He wakes up later in the warm travesty they’ve made of the bed, his face plastered against Zach’s shoulder. Somewhere along the line, Zach must have turned the TV off, and the room is so dark behind heavy blackout curtains that Chris has to lie blinking up at the ceiling for five minutes before he can begin to discern gradations of shadow. He crawls out of bed and dresses by the light of the clock radio. When he’s done, he stumbles across the room toward a slice of light beneath the door, fumbling for the handle. 

Zach’s keycard is still in his pocket, but that’s okay. They’re disposable.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zach goes to Cannes, Chris goes to New York, and both discover that taking a break is easier in theory than practice.

Chris wakes up two mornings after the L.A. premiere with a raging headache and nowhere to be. It’s weird. He lies there for awhile before rolling over and pawing at his phone on the nightstand. 7:35 AM.

“Seriously?” he mutters. Figures that he’s up before eight on his first real day off in two months. He makes a disgusted noise in his throat and kicks the covers off, smacking his lips against the cottony feeling in his mouth as he makes for the bathroom. When he comes back, his phone’s buzzing. A text from Zach. 

Chris thinks he does a pretty admirable job of ignoring the little leap in his chest that shows up when he sees the message, and then the incipient morass of pain into which the leap swiftly descends. _Fuck technology_ , Chris thinks. _Fuck everything about everything that has enabled the transmission of this message._ Okay, so maybe not _so_ admirable. 

_Hey._

Chris makes a face at his phone. 

_Hey,_ he replies. Then, because he’s a complete masochist, _You still in town?_

_Newark. Got some time to kill before my flight to CDG._

Chris wonders if Zach feels it too, the letdown. Probably not; he’s jetting off to Cannes and Chris is the one staying here to do who knows what. Watch the Food Network and try to get his circadian rhythm back into some semblance of normalcy before he goes to England and screws it up all over again. He lets his thumb hover over the “call back” button and is still deliberating when the phone rings. 

“I should never have let you set Baby Got Back as your ringtone.” 

“But you do got back,” Zach says. 

“It’s my phone,” Chris says. _And I’m not your baby,_ he thinks. _As we’ve established._

“I know it’s your phone. I like the idea of your phone reminding you that you’ve got an ass that won’t quit whenever I call.” 

“Are you drunk?” 

“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, Pine.” 

“That’s never stopped you before.”  
Zach chuckles at that, darkly, and it’s...upsetting, is what it is. Chris rubs his right eye with a balled up fist. 

“I might be drinking a mimosa,” Zach says. “For the nerves, you know.” 

“Please, as soon as you reach cruising altitude you put on your headphones and conk out. You also have a tendency to drool on your seatmate. Might wanna watch that.” 

“I’ll take it under advisement.” 

“So how long is your layover, anyway?” 

“Too long. Boarding in a couple hours.” Zach’s doing something else, Chris can tell. If it wasn’t so ridiculous Chris would swear he had a second phone and was on it, texting someone much cooler and plotting the most innocuous way to hang up with him. 

“What are you doing?”

“Sitting in the Air France lounge. Catching up on some light reading. Nietszche. Your _Out_ cover.” 

Chris’s face heats up reflexively. He used to read his own interviews when they came out in print, but he learned pretty quickly that it felt like listening to tinny, garbled tape recordings of himself, embarrassing him after the fact the way watching himself somehow never did. And there was always something taken out of context, some edit to piss him off without recourse. So he stopped. He thinks his mom might keep some kind of scrapbook, which is horrifying.

“Oh god, please tell me you’re kidding.” 

“No way, man. This is momentous. What are you doing in that picture? It looks like you’re speed-skating.” 

“I don’t even remember, the photographer had me doing all these weird yoga moves and stuff. Fitting, since if I recall correctly--though I’m trying not to, trust me-- we talked a little bit about you in that interview.” 

“Yeah, that you did. That you did.” Zach’s voice sounds funny, a little choked up. “Chris, listen, I--” 

“Oh no,” Chris says. “No, no, no, this is not a thing that’s happening right now, Quinto.” 

“You don’t know what I was going to say!” 

“You’re right, I don’t,” Chris says. “But if it’s a heartfelt thanks for being a decent human being to you despite dudebro appearances to the contrary, or any nostalgic reminiscing of the last month or so, I am going to hang up on you.” 

Zach is silent. Chris can hear him breathing directly onto the phone like an asshole, accompanied by the rustle of magazine pages. 

“So the other night was fun,” Zach says finally, airily, and Chris feels relief wash over him, mixed with something else. Because nothing about them will ever be simple, apparently. But it’s early, way too early for Chris to start dissecting anything, so he lets Zach give him the play-by-play, nevermind that Chris was there. He nods at appropriate intervals despite the fact that there’s no one here to see him. 

“Oh shit,” Zach says, midway through a diatribe--or a rhapsody, Chris can’t really tell-- on Dior’s fall collection that has somehow evolved from talking about his existential crisis regarding which shoes to wear to the premiere. “Someone’s on the other line. I gotta take this.” 

“What? Oh, yeah, no problem. Call me back.” 

Zach doesn’t call back, which shouldn’t surprise Chris, but somehow does anyway. He lays around on the bed for awhile, not because he’s moping but because it’s still way too early for any decent person to be out. Eventually, though, he can’t stand it any longer. He tosses the phone aside disgustedly and makes for the shower. When he finally exits the house to get coffee, he leaves the phone behind, and by the time he’s finished his latte and read the paper Zach’s flight has taken off and so he’s physically incapable of calling back. 

Chris thinks there was an episode of Mythbusters about that once, whether or not cell phone signals actually interfered with airplanes. If anyone would try to bend that rule, it’d be Zach, so he could document a freaking inspirational cloud formation or something. He leaves his phone off for the rest of the day, just for good measure. Chris likes not being beholden to technology, never mind the fact that if he goes too long before turning it back on his family’s liable to call the cops for a welfare check. As it is, when he turns his phone back on after dinner he’s got three messages, two of which are from Katie, who’s apparently really invested in his attendance at family dinner tomorrow night. 

Chris rolls his eyes and pretends to be annoyed. A choir of coyotes strikes up off in the dusk somewhere and he grins in spite of everything. It’s good to be home.

***

“They want me to do what?”

“Pick-ups in New York. It’s only a couple days, Chris. What’s the problem?” 

Chris scrubs a hand over his face. “Nothing. No problem. So when do they want me?” 

“Wednesday. You want to get the redeye Monday night?” He can hear her pen poised. His agent is nothing if not on point when it comes to logistics. Chris hates this shit, so he has to hand it to her. 

“Sure, fine. Thanks a lot.” 

“That’s what you pay me for,” she says brightly. “I’ll forward your flight info.” 

Chris hangs up and throws the phone again. This time it bounces off the mattress and hits the floor, thankfully landing on the rug. He’s got to get a grip, he thinks. It just makes such a satisfying projectile, and he’s started to associate it with Zach. Which isn’t his fucking fault, because he’s not the one making international late night phone calls. 

The thing about drunk dialling is that it works best when both parties are in the same time zone. Otherwise, it’s just strange to be fielding calls from someone at an afterparty in the south of France when you’re, like, picking up dry cleaning at three in the afternoon. 

“Hey, man!” 

Chris can hear the buzz creep through the phone line, and for just a split second he wants to be there really, really badly, despite the relative allure of what’s waiting for him post-dry cleaning run. A six-pack chilling in the fridge, friends coming over later to grill. A break from all the bullshit. Well, Zach is still living the bullshit, and by all accounts is having a grand old time. 

“Hey buddy,” Chris says. “Sounds like you’re having fun.” 

“Chris, did you know I have a fucking production company? And did you know we made a movie starring Robert fucking Redford?” 

“I think I remember something to that effect, Zachary. You might even have mentioned it _en flagrante_.” He feels a little thrill, bringing that up. It feels like a pond in the winter, ice untested. Chris is from fucking southern California, so who knows where he gets off on winter imagery. But the point stands: thin ice. 

Zach laughs, and Chris sighs out a breath. Not down the phone line, though, because he possesses a certain degree of subtlety, unlike some drunk people he knows. “I’m not surprised,” Zach says. “It gets me hot just thinking about it.” He giggles. “Oh my god, hold on. There are way too many people here.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

The background noise dies away, and Chris imagines Zach dressed to the nines in some dark corner, tie loose, face scruffy. “Yeah,” he says. “This party is great, Chris. There’s so much champagne.” 

“Better than the premiere?” 

“Not fair,” Zach says. “Not a fair question.”

“Isn’t it?” 

“It’s not. It’s not, Chris, because it’s fucking Cannes, and it’s fucking champagne in fucking France--did you know that if it’s not from France it’s not _actually_ champagne? It’s like...sparkling wine, or Prosecco or whatever.” 

“I did know that, thank you.” 

“You’re so _smart_ , Christopher,” Zach says, mockingly. “What are you doing right now?” 

“Picking up my dry cleaning.” 

“You are not.” 

“Yes, I am. I am literally sitting in the parking lot at the dry cleaners, talking to you on the phone.” 

“But it’s so late!” 

“It’s three in the afternoon, dude.” 

Zach cracks up at that, and Chris smiles. “I’m coming to New York,” he says, at the same time Zach says, quietly, “I wish you were here.” 

_Fuck,_ Chris thinks, and his brain shorts out momentarily before going into overdrive deciding whether or not to let that go. But in the end, gloriously drunk Zach decides for him, audibly slurping what should be water but is probably more champagne. “Oh my god, that’s amazing,” he says, swallowing. “When?” 

“Next week. They want to shoot some more stuff on Jack Ryan. It’s just for a couple days, but I don’t know, if you’re in town--” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, too loud. “Yeah, totally. Send me an email or something, we’ll go out.”  
“Cool,” Chris says. “I get in Tuesday, so.” 

“Oh shit,” Zach says. “I think the man himself just walked in. Chris, I gotta--”

“Wait, Redford? No way, go for it. And hey, Zach, it was--”

“Later, Pine. Let me know about next week.” _Click_. 

“It was good talking to you,” Chris says to the empty car.

***

Chris hates the red eye. He can never sleep, and he always gets to the other end pukey and greasy and wrung out, good for nothing but a shower and a nap. He slumps against the window of the town car and peers at his phone with one eye closed.

 _Here_ , he texts Zach. Predictably, there’s no response until he’s checked into his hotel and facedown on the blessedly soft mattress, trying to decide if he should pass out or eat something and then pass out. The pillow and his exhaustion are rapidly making the decision for him when his phone buzzes on the nightstand. 

_Plans?_

Chris groans, but of course he answers anyway. _Late call tomorrow. What are you up to?_

_Not much. Food later? Then ?_

Chris considers the question mark. Fucking Zach, he thinks. That question mark contains multitudes, he’s sure of it. _Sounds good. Should I come over?_

_7:00._

_Cool see you_

Chris is too tired to care about punctuation, and he loses track of his phone in the covers at some point before he falls asleep. 

He wakes to the faint sound of Baby Got Back, emanating from somewhere in the bed. “God fucking dammit,” he mutters, crawling out of his warm cocoon and rummaging around where the sheets are tucked into the mattress. Of course his phone stops ringing just as he thinks he’s getting close, and Chris has to disassemble his confection of a hotel bed and shake the comforter out to dislodge the fucking thing. He wonders if it’s too late to get housekeeping to come by again. 

He makes a wounded animal noise and flops supine onto the wreck of the bed, holding his phone overhead. One missed call from Zach, of course. It’s just past 6:00; Chris wonders if he’s calling to cancel. He winces as he hits send. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey,” Chris says. “Sorry, I was...in the bathroom.” 

“Whatever, you were passed out. I can hear it in your voice.” 

Chris looks askance at the phone. “What are you talking about?” 

He can practically hear Zach’s shrug. “You have a nap voice.” 

“I do not have a nap voice.” 

“Whatever,” Zach says again. “Look, I know you were supposed to come over, but I was in the neighborhood, and--” Zach mutters something Chris can’t quite make out. 

“I’m sorry, did you say you were here?” 

“Um. Yes? Is that cool? I was on my way home, and I had to go by this bookstore that was like a five minute walk from you, so I just figured--” 

Chris, god help him, is smiling really fucking hard. He sits up. “No, come on up. I’m in 812.” 

_Bad idea, Christopher,_ he thinks as he furiously remakes the bed. _Bad idea jeans._ He sprawls back on the bed and listens to his heart pound. “I am not nearly drunk enough for this shit,” he says, Zach’s knock coming far too soon at the door. 

Chris rolls up onto his feet and has the foresight to look at himself in the mirror, not that he can do much about it now. Yeah, he definitely looks like he’s been taking a nap, his face flushed and pillow-creased, his hair wild. Whatever, he thinks. Can’t be worse than whatever the fuck Quinto has going on up top. And then he’s across the room, opening the door, and he should not feel like this because it will only end badly. 

“Hey,” Zach says, all quiet, and he’d standing there in the doorway kind of ducking his head and smiling, a small smile Chris has never seen before. Zach can smile big for the cameras and he can grin wickedly and he can leer up at Chris from between Chris’s thighs, and apparently he can also break Chris a little just like this, before he’s even come inside. 

Chris gestures, _come on,_ and Zach does. He’s wearing jeans and Chucks and a black t-shirt, and it’s the least put-together Chris has seen him in a long time. The hair’s starting to grow back, thank god. 

“Hi,” Chris says. “I’m--I don’t know, man, I’m glad you came.” 

“You look like shit,” Zach says sweetly. 

There are lots of things Chris wants to say, lots of things he should say. But none of them end with him crossing the room and taking Zach’s face in his hands, none of them end with Zach drawing in a breath, tensing under Chris’s fingers so that Chris can hear the ‘no’ in his throat, feel him swallow it back down. And none of them end with Zach leaning in, making a small distraught noise as he kisses Chris. So, naturally, Chris doesn’t say anything. 

“How long has it been?” Zach mutters as he backs Chris over to the bed. 

“I dunno, like three weeks or something. You fuck a bunch of cute French boys?” 

Zach snorts. “Pine, never utter the phrase ‘cute French boys’ again. And no, if you must know, I did not. Though not for lack of opportunity, I can assure you.” 

“You just had to get that in somehow, didn’t you,” Chris says, kicking off his jeans. He’s half-hard already, and Zach’s staring at him, eyes all dark and hooded. 

“Mmm,” Zach says. “Well, I never claimed not to be an egotistical creature.” 

Chris takes his shirt off, motions for Zach to do the same. “Singularly egotistical,” he says. 

Zach drops his shirt next to the bed and starts working on his jeans. Button-fly, fussy, and Chris totally has an opening here. But Zach’s sliding the jeans off and down his legs, the process of which takes a damn year, and Chris decides he’ll take the high road for a change.

“Jesus, who made this bed?” Zach says, yanking back the comforter and hopping inside. 

“I was napping, you dick.” Chris climbs in next to him, and they’re so close now. Zach smells good, like clean sweat and some kind of avant garde perfume that’s probably supposed to evoke a glass of water or the color grey or something. 

“Were you building a den for the winter?” 

Chris doesn’t answer, just lies back and pulls Zach down on top of him to kiss. Zach slides his arm around Chris, between his body and the mattress. He tugs Chris to him, pulls him in short and sharp so a little huff of breath gets shaken loose. He moves his free hand down Chris’s body and closes long fingers around Chris’s dick. Chris breathes out again like he’s been holding it since London, and Zach makes that little noise again, the one that Chris would  
swear sounded pained if Zach wasn’t so hard against his hip. 

Zach runs his thumb over Chris’s lower lip and Chris chases it with his tongue, which encourages Zach to slide his fingers in and hook them over Chris teeth. Chris sucks, tongue tracing the rough whorls of Zach’s fingerprints, a callus at the third joint of his index finger. 

“Your fucking mouth, Pine,” Zach growls. 

Chris grins around Zach’s fingers, which he presently removes and replaces with his tongue, his now-slick fingers trailing coolly down Chris’s side. Zach moans into Chris’s mouth and nudges his legs apart with a knee, withdrawing with another quick kiss before throwing the covers back and scooting down Chris’s body to settle between his legs. 

“What are you shooting tomorrow?” he asks, so quietly and prosaically that Chris has to think about it for a second. 

“Um, I don’t know, some action stuff, why--” 

“No love scenes with Keira?” he asks teasingly.

“What? No, she’s not even here for this, I don’t think.” Chris is clearly not picking up what Zach’s putting down. 

“Cool,” Zach says. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” Without further explanation, he lowers his mouth to Chris’s inner thigh, scraping his teeth over the tender flesh there and sucking it into his mouth. 

“Fuck,” Chris says. He reaches down to palm his dick, but Zach reaches up to smack it away without even looking. Chris wants to squirm; he’s ticklish and Zach isn’t letting up. His ministrations begin to shade towards painful, an achy, bruising throb. As they do, Chris realizes abruptly that that’s the point. He can’t not focus on it now, the warm and wet place where Zach is sucking like a vampire, enthusiastically encouraging blood to bloom under Chris’s skin. Just when it’s too much, the ache sharpening to a sting, Zach raises his head and moves over a few inches to a heretofore pristine square of Chris’s inner thigh. 

“Goddammit, what are you doing?” 

“Relax,” Zach says, lips slipping against Chris’s skin, breath a humid cloud before he makes a seal with his lips and sucks. Mercifully, he takes hold of Chris’s dick with his free hand and begins to jerk him slowly, the pleasure of it sweet and sharp in counterpoint to the dull throb that’s taken up a rhythmic drumbeat along his leg. Zach continues like this for long minutes, Chris hyperaware of every beat of his heart, every wave of blood ferried down to his pelvis. He bucks against Zach’s mouth, feeling somehow held in place despite the fact that, were he so inclined, he could get up any time. He could kick Zach away and be done with….with whatever this is. Zach splays his free hand palm-down across Chris’s hip, pressing down with just the barest hint of _don’t_ , and it makes Chris moan and throw his head back against the pillows bound as surely as if there had been actual restraints. 

“How do you do this to me?” he mutters, and he’s not sure but he thinks Zach might be laughing.

Eventually, Zach lies back and appears to examine his handiwork, pressing his fingers to hot, sensitized skin. Chris jerks his hips upwards, pleasure and discomfort all muddled together now into one big mess of feeling. Zach kisses the bruised-feeling skin, lips moving like he’s saying something. Chris wonders if it’ll leave a mark tomorrow. Probably. 

“Did you like that?” Zach asks. He squeezes Chris experimentally. “You feel like you liked it.” 

“Fuck, I don’t know,” Chris says. Yes. Maybe? He can’t think straight. 

Zach kisses his way further down, and when he spreads Chris wide and licks at his hole it feels so good that Chris wants to sob. Zach slides his hands between the mattress and Chris’s lower back, and if he has any objections to Chris touching himself now he doesn’t voice them, for which Chris is grateful. He’s also a little petulant, because how is it that his dick has somehow become Zach’s jurisdiction? But it is, oh god it is. 

Zach’s nosing his way in with his whole face and it feels so good and Chris never wants it to stop. His stubble pricks at Chris’s thighs, adding a new and interesting layer of discomfort on top of the now omnipresent throbbing. Chris spreads his legs wider and lets Zach pull him down the mattress. His hand feels too clumsy on his dick, so he lets his fingers tangle in Zach’s hair instead. It’s crispy with product, but he doesn’t care. He can feel the subtle shift of muscles in Zach’s skull as he widens his mouth and bites at Chris, extricating a hand from beneath Chris’s body and pressing inside him with a careful finger. 

It’s been awhile. Chris screws his face up involuntarily and moves his hand back to his dick. 

“Do you have lube?” Zach asks, sounding breathless. 

Chris feels himself flush, because he does, but that’s like admitting he thought this was going to happen. 

“Chris. Focus.” Zach smacks him lightly on one of the hickeys. It smarts. 

“Sorry,” Chris says. “Yeah, it’s...it’s in my duffle. With my shaving stuff.” 

Zach groans, ostensibly at the hardship of walking his ass a couple feet across the room, but he does, bring Chris’s whole dopp kit over to the bed and dropping it unceremoniously next to him, rummaging through it and retrieving a travel-sized tube. 

“How optimistic,” he says. “Brand new and everything. Or, on second thought, maybe not optimistic enough. It’s kind of puny.” 

“Sorry if I didn’t know you were planning some kind of sex marathon, okay? Especially since we’re not even supposed to be doing this anymore.” 

Zach cock an eyebrow at him, stretching out on his side and making a show of smearing lube onto his fingers. “That’s right,” he says. “We’re not, are we?” 

“You were the one that said so in the first place, you--” 

Of course, Zach chooses this moment to press his now prodigiously-lubed fingers into Chris’s ass, which makes Chris grimace and forget whatever he was going to say to Zach. 

“Out of practice?” Chris can hear the smirk in Zach’s voice without even looking; it’s infuriating. 

“Obviously,” he says. 

“I don’t know, is it obvious? There’s no shortage of _cute boys_ in LA.” Zach slides his fingers in and out as if in punctuation. 

“You know I’d never--” Chris thinks better of it, biting the rest of the sentence back and shaking his head. He’s not even sure where the hell he was going with that. Nowhere good. 

“You have no idea how much I like that thought,” Zach says darkly. “It’s becoming a problem.” 

“What?” 

Zach leans down and kisses Chris’s hipbone. “Shh,” he says. “Forget it.” Which isn’t that hard to do, really, because Chris’s body is starting to get with the program. He likes it a little rough anyway, which is just one of the unfortunate ways that he and Zach are compatible. Zach likes it rough too. More than a little, maybe. Chris runs his nails along the crest of Zach’s shoulder, and Zach looks up, eyes heavy-lidded. 

“Come up here,” Chris says, and Zach does. They kiss for a long time, Zach’s body pressed to Chris’s like a lead blanket, trapping Chris’s dick between them in a friction sandwich that’s eventually too much to take. “I want you,” Chris says into Zach’s ear. 

“Huh?” Zach mumbles, coming back to himself. “You sure?” 

“Yeah, fuck it, it’s been forever.” 

Zach rolls his eyes, but that doesn’t stop him from locating a condom in Chris’s shaving kit and getting up on his knees to put it on while Chris watches. He’s probably drooling; Zach will give him hell for it later, but Chris doesn’t care. His entire constitution is doing a happy sensory hula at the prospect of getting his ass fucked, which is pretty damn funny if you think of it from the perspective of Past Chris. 

“Take a picture, Pine, it’ll last longer.” 

“I fucking should. We should make a sex tape.” 

“Yikes,” Zach says. Condom in place, he lowers himself back down carefully, pushing up on an elbow, glancing down at his dick nudging against Chris’s ass. “Move your legs back a little bit,” he says, so Chris does, wincing as his hips and hamstrings protest. Zach starts to push inside, and Chris screws his eyes shut, trying to breathe. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

He nods furiously; Zach drives him crazy sometimes, vacillating from pushy and demanding to careful, kid-glove treatment that throws Chris for a loop. “I’m fine,” he says, maybe a little more vociferously than he means to. 

“I don’t want to break you,” Zach says, shifting his weight forward and sliding into Chris a little deeper. 

“I think you would’ve already,” Chris says. 

Zach’s quiet for a second, biting his lip contemplatively. “Maybe.” 

“Quit worrying and kiss me,” Chris says. Zach leans down and complies, Chris scooting back a little as he does so to take him in deeper. It seems to take Zach by surprise. 

“Fuck,” he says. “You feel good.” 

“You too. I...I missed it.” 

Zach sighs, rolling his hips into Chris. “Me too,” he says. “I missed it too.” They’re quiet after that, which is weird, because Zach likes to talk and Chris likes to hear it. But the air feels charged, the early evening light streaming in diluted through the gauzy curtains and making abstract patterns of shadow on the ceiling. Zach’s kissing him more than he usually does, long and deep, his hands on both sides of Chris’s face like he’s worried Chris might try to get away. Their pace feels slower, more leisurely. Maybe it’s because they haven’t been drinking copiously and antagonizing each other all night, maybe it’s because they’re just here, together, with nowhere else in particular to be. And sure, they’re in a hotel again, but at this point it would probably feel stranger if they were at one of their places. Chris has an arm behind his head and another at his hip, thumb stroking Zach idly. Eventually, he finds himself clutching at Zach, pulling him closer and crossing his arms over Zach’s back. Chris is right there, pleasure welling up in him like water, and all it takes is a hand sliding between their bodies and he’s coming as he jerks himself once, twice.

When Zach comes, there’s only a hitch of breath to give it away. He slumps on top of Chris, rolling off to the side just enough that he’s not crushing, and they lie there together for what feels like a really long time. Zach stirs first, sliding off of the bed and going into the bathroom to retrieve a washcloth and throw the condom away. Chris is drowsing again by the time he gets back. 

“Get under the covers,” Chris says sleepily. Zach says nothing, just crawls over Chris and settles at his side, pulling the sheet back to wipe Chris’s stomach. “Thanks,” Chris mutters. Zach says something in reply, but Chris is too warm, too comfortable to bother asking him to repeat himself, and then he’s asleep so it doesn’t matter anyway.

***

Chris wakes up to a darkened room, lit only by a lamp over in the corner. Zach is curled up in the chair next to it, reading a book. He’s showered and his hair is wet. He’s wearing thick white socks, which seem incongruous given the black jeans. Chris is struck by how unguarded he looks in the moment, absorbed in whatever he’s reading. He’s not sure if he’s ever just _looked_ at Zach before. He feels himself smile into the pillow, and he must shift somehow, make some sound, because Zach looks up at him.

“Hey,” he says. 

“Hey. Sorry, I guess I’m still pretty wiped from the flight. Redeyes do a number on me.” 

“It’s cool. I can go if you want to go back to sleep,” Zach says, so mildly that Chris can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a hint or not. 

“No, don’t go,” he says, probably a shade too quickly, but fuck it. He rolls over onto his back and sits up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of a hand. “Can we go eat? I’m starving.” 

Zach laughs at that. “God, I missed you, Pine.” Chris waits for this revelation to be tempered with an appropriately biting remark, but it never comes. 

There’s a Chipotle down the block that Chris advocates for--let it never be said that Chris Pine is a food snob--but Zach refuses to entertain the idea and drags them to Brooklyn, by which point Chris is fighting a serious case of hypoglycemic rage. Luckily the place Zach finally settles on seats them right away, and they’ve got a burger on the menu and a pretty sweet list of beers on tap, so Chris manages to get a grip. He orders the burger and fries and an IPA and is somewhat surprised when Zach hands his menu to the waiter with a shrug and an “I’ll have what he’s having.” 

“Really,” Chris says. “You, stooping to my cholesterol-laden level?” 

“I’m only human, Christopher,” Zach says. “Plus I somehow managed to work up an appetite.” 

Chris feels his face get hot. “Yeah, about that--” He’s interrupted by the arrival of their beers, and Zach holds up a quelling finger as he clinks pint glasses with Chris and takes a sip. 

“About that,” Chris repeats. Despite all evidence to the contrary--his pounding heart, Zach’s querulous expression--Chris is suddenly determined to talk about it. “In London--”

“Look, I know what I said in London,” Zach says. He sighs, letting his head drop to one side, cheek to palm. “What do you want me to tell you, that I’ve got it all figured out? Because I don’t. I didn’t...I didn’t come to your hotel to fuck you today. I didn’t!” 

“Hey, I didn’t say anything,” Chris says, holding his hands up. 

“You gave me a look,” Zach says, smiling like he’s trying not to. 

“It was probably subconscious.” 

“Uh huh.” 

Chris takes a long sip of beer, lets it mellow in his mouth before swallowing it down. “This is hoppy as fuck,” he mutters. “I mean, what would...what would figuring it all out look like, do you think?” 

“If I knew that, I’d have it figured out, wouldn’t I? I don’t know, Chris. I know you like what we’ve been doing, but you’re not--” 

“I’m not what?” 

“Forget it,” Zach says. 

“No, that’s the second time tonight you’ve told me to forget something. Fucking spit it out.” It’s stupid, egging Zach on like this. Chris can practically see the tension building, coiling serpentine behind Zach’s eyes. _He’s being nice to you,_ thinks Chris. _Just leave it._ Which in and of itself might be the most fucked up thought Chris has had in a long time, but he guesses he can analyze that later. 

Zach glances around like he’s looking for eavesdroppers, then leans in over the table. “You’re not gay,” he says. “Happy now?” 

Chris isn’t happy. And he’s not gay, either; Zach’s right. So why does he feel so fucking defensive, like he’s spoiling for a fight about it? Maybe he’s hungry. He doesn’t say anything, just picks up his knife and whacks off a hunk of butter from the dish in the middle of the table, then spreads it on a piece of bread and shoves the whole thing into his mouth, staring sullenly off into space. 

“Wow,” Zach says. “For a second there I thought you were coming after me with that thing.” 

“It’s just a butter knife,” Chris says, still looking away. “Not a very effective weapon.” 

Zach scoots his chair over so he’s sitting next to Chris instead of across from him. He reaches over and rests his hand on Chris’s knee, hidden by the drape of the tablecloth. Chris reaches for his beer and takes a long swallow.

“Look at me,” Zach says. 

Chris sighs. doesn’t want to look. He’s got no idea what he’s going to see if he does, but he has a feeling it’s going to be on the pity end of the emotional spectrum. That’s not a look he’s gotten in a while. It reminds him of going to the dermatologist in high school, and not just because Zach can be so fucking clinically incisive when he wants to be. 

“Chris, come on.” 

Chris groans. “Fine,” he says, turning back to face him. “Now are _you_ happy?” 

“No.” 

And the thing is, Chris thinks, Zach doesn’t look pitying at all. He just looks...tired. Tired and a little crestfallen, and his hand is still on Chris’s knee, fingers flexing against denim. 

“Why’s it matter?” Chris mutters. 

“What?” 

The food comes then. The server obviously notes the cloud of tension hanging over the table. He deposits their plates and makes himself scarce again, though not before Chris raises his nearly-empty glass in a nonverbal plea for more alcohol. He looks glumly down at his burger. It looks delicious. But Chris has always felt like burgers are happy food. Burgers are celebratory; they’re blissfully, willfully ignorant of things like health and responsibility, and he might have been feeling that way when he ordered but he’s not feeling it now. He picks up a fry and pokes it desultorily into the little metal cup of aoli. It looks fucking delicious. 

“Dammit,” Chris says quietly. 

“Why does what matter?” Zach says, evidently not lost in contemplation of his dinner à la Chris. 

“Nothing,” Chris says.

“Chris, come on. We can’t...I mean as fun as this is--” He rolls his eyes. “As fun as it is for both of us to keep deflecting, we should probably just bite the bullet and talk about it.” 

“Me being gay, then,” Chris says, louder than he probably should. “I mean, look, I know why it matters. I get it. I’m just...I’m being dumb.” He pops the fry into his mouth, chews contemplatively. 

Zach chooses this moment to take the bun off the top of his burger and cut into it with his knife and fork, which manages to both diffuse the tension and reassure Chris that he may be dumb, but he’s not _that_ dumb. Although Zach looks kind of prissy and adorable doing it, and the look of bemused innocence with which he greets Chris’s hoot of laughter is doing things to Chris’s heart rate in spite of this whole conversation. 

“What?” Zach says. “I don’t want to get, like, meat drippings all over my clothes.” 

“You’re right,” Chris says. “I’m definitely not gay.” 

“No, your permanent state of disaster has nothing at all to do with your sexuality,” Zach says primly. “Although I suppose there’s a parallel to be drawn here between our respective intrinsic natures.”

Chris opens his mouth to make an appropriately scathing retort and manages to prove Zach’s point in spectacular fashion by losing his grip on the french fry he was about to wave around for emphasis. The fry lands somewhere in the dining room, probably nearby, but the lights are down low and Chris doesn’t like his odds of finding it. He heaves a defeated sigh. Across the table, Zach is slowly shaking his head. “Unbelievable,” he says. “Just...unbelievable.” 

Then they’re both laughing, Zach clapping a hand over his mouth to prevent Pine-style ejection of food and Chris putting his head down on the table, shoulders shaking. When he looks up at Zach again, Zach’s watching him, eyes bright. The rest of the meal proceeds apace, and it’s not that Chris doesn’t notice that Zach’s let the whole topic of _them_ drop, it’s just that...he’s okay with it. For tonight, anyway. Because there’s really only one way that conversation ends, and he’s beginning to realize he has a vested interest in putting it off for as long as possible. 

“C’mon,” Zach says, after they’ve paid the check. “Let’s get out of here.” 

The air outside is soft and humid, the night sky still paler to the west. Overhead, the stars are out, at least the handful undaunted by what’s probably the brightest ambient light in the world. Chris makes it halfway down the street and stops, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up. Zach comes up behind him, sliding his arms around Chris’s waist and resting his chin on Chris’s shoulder. “You want to come over?” he asks. 

“Should I?” 

Zach lets out a long breath. His body slumps against Chris’s back, warm and becoming slightly sticky at the places where their skin touches. His lips find the nape of Chris’s neck, then kiss up to his hairline. “You know they call your first vertebra the atlas,” he says. “Because it holds up your whole world.” He sighs, an irriguous draft. “Do you ever think things might be easier if you could just...live inside your own head all the time, not have to deal with anything else?” 

“All the time,” Chris says. “But come on, you might be the most social person I know. You’d go nuts. You wouldn’t last a day.” He turns around, extricating his hands from his pockets and holding Zach fast when he tries to move away. Chris kisses him, and Zach’s still for a moment before kissing back. 

“Do you want me to come over?” Chris asks. 

Zach swallows. Chris watches the clearcut forest of stubble over his adam’s apple. It’s funny, he thinks, the way he finds himself caught up in the little details of Zach. He’s not sure he remembers exactly when he started to notice. 

“Yes,” Zach says. “I do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember how they mutually weaseled out of talking about it? Well...they talk about it. Later, Chris gets back to life in L.A.

Zach’s apartment is oddly quiet without the dogs. Chris says as much and Zach’s face falls. “Don’t remind me,” he says. “I’m boarding them. There’s, like, this indoor play area and they get walks twice a day and lots of treats and don’t give me that look, okay, I feel really fucking guilty about it already.” 

“I didn’t say anything, man. I don’t judge. I know nothing about the ups and downs of long distance dog ownership.” 

“Well, it sucks,” Zach says. “I really feel for people who have kids in this business, you know?” 

Chris doesn’t know, and he’s not sure how apt the dog/child comparison is either, so he bites his lip and elects not to comment at all. 

“You want a drink?” 

Chris nods, and Zach goes into the kitchen and fishes around in the fridge, producing two beers and cracking the tops off. He comes back into the living room and flops on the couch, pats the cushion next to him. Chris sits and takes his beer from Zach, lifting it to his lips and taking a long sip. His buzz from the restaurant is starting to fade, replaced with a heaviness in his limbs and head. His timing’s all off, he can already tell, and this beer is just going to make him sleepy. He guesses there are worse ways to feel, curled up on a couch with someone. 

“Tired?” he asks. 

Zach shrugs. “Kind of. I think I’ve just given in to it now. My poor screwed up circadian rhythm.” 

Chris laughs. “Poor baby. What would 2003 Zach say if he could see you now, sitting in your New York apartment without a single roommate and whining about jet lag from criss-crossing the globe to and from movie premieres?” 

“He’d tell me to shut the fuck up and thank my lucky stars. And that I was late for my shift at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.” 

Chris chases Zach’s bottle with his own and clinks them together. “Well, cheers to those days being over,” he says. “Even if stranger days are here in their place.” 

Zach smiles. “You’ve got that right,” he says. He leans back into the cushions and rolls his head from side to side like he’s trying to get comfortable. Chris nestles his beer between his thighs and lays his arm along the back of the couch, his fingertips just brushing Zach’s neck. He scoots closer to get better purchase and runs his hand up to the little notch where Zach’s neck meets his skull. 

“Atlas, huh?” Chris says. “Must get pretty rough for one little bone, carting your massive brain around all the time.” He rubs small circles with his thumb and Zach moans. 

“I’ll let the tone slide if you keep that up, Pine.” 

Chris does, until Zach’s eyes are closed and Chris thinks he might be snoring a little bit and the massage has devolved into idle stroking of Zach’s hair. Zach’s shoulder looks awfully inviting, so Chris can’t really blame himself for letting his hand drop into Zach’s lap and settling into the juncture of his shoulder and the couch. He thinks vaguely about moving his half-full bottle to the coffee table, but that would involve moving, and he’s just going to sit here and rest his eyes for a few minutes anyway.

***

Chris is in the middle of a confusing dream involving Kenneth Branagh and an elevator when he’s rudely awakened by a lapful of tepid beer. A predictable outcome, but no less shocking for it. He sits bolt upright, half asleep and wiping frantically at himself, completely forgetting that he and Zach have basically been curled up together until now.

“What the fuck are you _doing_?” Zach socks Chris in the arm and moves to the opposite end of the couch, burying his head under a throw pillow. 

“I don’t know,” Chris says. “I spilled. Ugh, it’s all over my pants.” 

Zach makes a strangled noise that’s mostly muffled by the pillow. “God, it’s like the setup to some kind of nightmare porno.” 

“Shut up,” Chris says. He peels his jeans off and goes into the bathroom to run water over the beer stain, so hopefully he won’t have to go back to the hotel tomorrow smelling like a brewery. He plucks at his sodden boxers and sighs, peering at himself in the mirror. Zach’s bathroom counter is a somewhat organized mess of assorted skin and hair products.If he were more awake he’d take the time to snoop properly. 

“Here,” Zach says from the doorway. He’s holding out a pair of sweatpants. 

“Thanks. Listen, I can go if you want.” 

Zach rolls his eyes, but there’s no venom in his expression. “Come to bed,” he says. “The couch is a wreck.” 

Zach’s bedroom is the best part of the apartment, Chris thinks, all exposed brick and a big bed that takes up most of the room as if Zach’s done a really excellent cost-benefit analysis of space versus pillows and decided room to walk around is vastly overrated. Chris agrees. He takes a running leap and cannonballs into the middle of the mattress, curling up in the fetal position. 

“Get your beer boxers off the bed,” Zach says in mock reproach. “Is it possible for a square foot of my home to remain unscathed? Can I have that, Chris? Just for tonight?” 

Chris shucks off his shorts and puts the sweatpants on, rolling over onto his back to look up at Zach. “So much drama,” he says. “Save it for Broadway, Quinto.” 

“Hmmph,” Zach says. He turns to face the dresser and pulls what look like another pair of sweats out of a drawer. He takes his shirt off, unbuttoning his jeans and shuffling back to the bed to sit down and take them off too. He kicks them in the general direction of a laundry hamper, missing by a mile.

“Ugh, great,” he says, getting off the bed again and tossing his shirt and jeans into the hamper itself, an action that would have frankly never occurred to Chris. He frowns. Whatever, it’s not like there are a lot of people coming and going in his bedroom these days. And hotels don’t count. In hotels it’s totally socially acceptable to live out of a giant pile on top of your open suitcase, and Chris will not hear differently. 

“Will you get in?” he says. 

“Hold your horses,” Zach says. “Some of us have standards.” 

“And some of us are sleepy and want you to get the hell in the bed.” 

“Hey, I’m not the one who passed out on the couch holding a beer bottle. We could still be asleep.” Zach gets into the bed, and when he does there’s a strange moment that passes between them. The tenor of it reminds Chris of that first time, back in Berlin, when he’d come to the realization that despite the relative improbability of that evening’s events, finding himself in a bed with Zach felt far more normal than it had any right to be. And here they are again, Zach stretched out beside him. He’s eyeballing the distance between them like he’s not sure whether or not to bridge the gap. Chris has the feeling that that’s important somehow. 

_And that,_ says Future Chris, _is when everything changed._

Zach bites his lip and looks Chris up and down. Then he leans over him to turn off the light. When he settles back down next to Chris in the dark, their shoulders are touching. Chris finds that words have deserted him, which is an unusual occurrence in present company. The silence isn’t an uncomfortable one, so he lets it stretch, though a part of his brain is screeching at him to say something before Zach rolls over and falls asleep, before it’s tomorrow. Eventually, his throat prickles and Chris takes the opportunity to cough, letting his shoulder jostle Zach’s just so. 

“What’s up?” Zach says quietly. 

“Oh, uh, nothing. Just seeing if you were still awake.” 

Zach exhales. “Indeed I am.” 

“Oh. Hey, can...can I ask you a question?” 

Zach rolls over to face Chris. “Uh oh,” he says. “I never know what to think when you get curious, Pine.” 

“Can I ask my question or not?” 

Zach makes a _tsk_ sound with his tongue. “Be my guest.” 

“When did you know you were gay?” 

Zach chuckles softly. “Wow, going hard right out of the gate,” he says. 

“Sorry. You don’t have to--” 

“No, it’s cool. Um...like eight or nine? Elementary school, for sure. I had this neighbor; his older brother had built them this wooden fort in their side yard and we used to haul, like, couch cushions and stuff into it when the weather was nice and lay around and read. And I remember one day being in the fort with him and just really wanting to kiss him. It was the first time I’d ever really thought about kissing anyone.” 

“So did you?” 

“Um, no. I did not. No, first kiss was, ah, was later.” The room is dark, the only light filtering in through Zach’s curtains from the street, but Chris can see Zach smile anyway. A private smile, remembering. 

“It’s weird,” Chris says. “I...don’t remember anything like that with girls. I mean, girls--liking girls--that was just what you did, it was what we talked about. I don’t know that I ever thought about anything else back then, that it even registered that there were other things to think about.” 

“Do people typically spend a lot of time ruminating on when they found out they were straight?” 

Zach’s tone is light, but the question cuts anyway. Chris makes a face. “Come on,” he says. “I’ve been sleeping with you for like six weeks. I’m not...I think it might be safe to say that I’m not exactly straight.” 

Zach huffs a breath. Chris hears a rustling sound as Zach’s hand moves over the pillow, and then he’s touching Chris’s face, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “No,” he says. “I guess you’re not, are you. So that was then. What about now?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Does this register? I mean, as a viable option. Not just...things to do in the dark.” There’s an edge to his voice now, and Chris is quickly cottoning to the fact that yeah, something’s happening here. Something big. 

Chris reaches up and catches Zach’s fingers, takes his hand and places it down on his chest. Zach’s hand tenses, like he’s trying to pull away, but then he relaxes and lets Chris interlace their fingers. “Zach,” Chris says. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m not...this doesn’t just feel like messing around.”

Zach does take his hand back then, rolling over onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow. He says something that’s too muffled for Chris to make out. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know, but he can’t help himself. He’s a glutton for punishment, apparently. He nudges Zach with his foot. “What?” 

“Fuck me,” Zach says, hands over his face. “I think we should take a real break.” But he’s smiling now, rolling over on his back and grinning up at the ceiling, and Chris is...Chris is confused. 

“Am I missing something?” 

Zach claps a hand to his mouth and fucking _giggles_. “I love you,” he says. 

“What?” Chris sits up; something feels fundamentally wrong about lying down right now.

Zach props himself up on an elbow and stares at Chris, wild-eyed in the gloaming. “I’ve loved you for years,” he says. “And now you’re in my bed and we’ve been fucking since April and you’re asking me these questions like ‘Oh, Zachary, help, I think I might actually like boys’ and--” he holds up a hand to forestall Chris’s inevitable offended response. “And do you realize how horrible this is?” 

“Not really? And hold on, _years_? Zach, I never--” 

“I’m an actor, remember?” 

All Chris can think of is Paris. The first press tour, that smoky club, Zach nursing a drink in the pink flare of lights. Just you and me. _I wasn’t crazy,_ Chris thinks. 

“Jesus,” he says. 

“I wrote you off,” Zach says. He’s spread his hands palms-up in his lap and is staring down at them like he might be able to read some answer there. “When we first met, I mean. I guess that’s what I get for underestimating Chris Pine. So, fine, you were gorgeous. Obviously, right? But then you were smart as hell and you were a fantastic actor and a great fucking friend. The only thing, Chris, the only thing you weren’t was into guys.” 

“I don’t know what to say,” Chris says. His face is burning; he’s never been great at taking a compliment, and now they’re coming rapid fire and at close range. “I guess...I guess I’m still not really seeing where the problem is.” 

He wants to touch Zach. He thinks about reaching out for one of his hands, but he has no idea if Zach wants that, if Zach wants Chris anywhere near him. For all his words, his body language is tight and standoffish, as much as someone can be while half-naked and buried in a comforter. 

“I go to therapy twice a week. You know what we talk about? I mean, not so much anymore, but in the beginning this was like the only topic of conversation.” 

Fine, Chris will bite. “What do you talk about, Zachary?” 

“My relationships, _Christopher_. The fact that for years--years!-- it was physically impossible for me to be in a relationship with someone who wasn’t totally unavailable, either emotionally or...or otherwise. And I can see the look of abject horror in your eyes, so before you ask, no, I never talked about you in therapy. By name, anyway. And it wasn’t like you were the only one.” Zach laughs, a caustic and unpleasant sound. 

“Anyway,” he says. “My point is that for the first time in forever I’m apparently capable of having actual mutually satisfying relationships. Not saying they don’t end, because clearly they do. But it’s theoretically possible. And then...then you show up to the party, all curious.” 

“You fucking started it!” 

“I know,” Zach says, chagrined. “I blame Berlin.” 

Chris smiles in spite of himself. “Fair enough.” He shakes his head. “Berlin, man.” 

“Tell me about it.” Zach sighs. “My point is, I’ve spent years getting over this shit, and I don’t...I don’t want to get back into it again.” 

“So, what, you think I’m just going to dick around with you and then decide I only like girls again?” 

“It wouldn’t be your fault,” Zach says hurriedly. “Figuring this stuff out isn’t easy. I of all people should know that.” 

“But you just got through telling me you’ve known since you were a kid.” 

“Sure, but remember back when we first met? I was taking model-actresses on just as many publicity dates as you were. If you think that doesn’t do a number on you, you’re crazy. No, being out, like out to everyone--that’s its own set of issues to work through, and it took me a long time.” 

“Zach, it’s not like you’re the only guy I’ve ever hooked up with. I was a theatre geek at Berkeley, for god’s sake.” 

Zach cocks his head to one side like a cynical owl. “Drunk groping at parties doesn’t count, Pine.” 

“Fuck you, dude. I’ve done more than just groping.” Figures, doesn’t it, thinks Chris, that this too is suddenly a competition.

“Okay. Whatever you say.” 

“Now you’re just being an asshole.” Chris falls back onto the pillows, feeling like he’s been suckerpunched. Zach loves him. Chris only has to think for about a fraction of a second before he knows that yes, he loves Zach too. But does he love him _back_? How is he even supposed to tell? Everything’s tangled together, eight years worth of being Chris-and-Zach, the heady rush of the last few weeks. He can’t sort it out. But it seems like Zach’s been doing the sorting for him. 

Zach’s quiet, finally leaning over Chris again and turning on the lamp. 

“You know, you could just ask me to do that,” Chris says.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zach says in a small voice.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Chris said. “I’d say that ship’s sailed, wouldn’t you?” 

“Well, fine, how about this, Chris?” Zach’s voice is sharper now, raw. “I don’t want to hurt myself. I don’t want end up hating you. Because look, I can deal with this. I’ve been dealing with it for a long time. But it can’t go any further, because if it does, I’m not sure I can come back from it. And I know that if I do, we aren’t going to end up friends.”

“This makes zero sense,” Chris says. “Just so you know. I’m sitting here telling you that I’m attracted to you. You know I’m attracted to you; you were balls deep up my ass earlier today. You’re really going to sit here and tell me that that’s not enough for you?” 

Zach scrubs at his face with a hand. “I’m saying that I’d rather quit while we’re ahead than try to do this and fail miserably.” 

“Quit while you’re ahead, you mean. Because you’re the arbiter of gayness, or whatever, and I don’t pass muster.” 

“Nobody’s the arbiter of anything, Chris. But I think I’m well within my rights to say I don’t want to be your test case.” 

“What the _fuck_.” 

That’s it, that is fucking it. Chris is blowing by pissed off straight into livid, and there is no way in hell he’s going to lie here in bed with Zach for a second longer. “You realize how fucking condescending you sound, right? Because I hope to hell you’re not that goddamn oblivious.” 

He casts around the room for his clothes; he’s left his shirt balled up in the bathroom. He gives up the boxers for lost and is shrugging commando into his damp, yeasty-smelling jeans when Zach comes up behind him. 

“Keep the sweats,” he says. “Chris, come on, it’s two in the morning. Stay. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“The couch has beer all over it.” 

“I don’t care. I’ll put a towel down.” 

Zach sounds miserable and looks worse, and as angry as Chris is all he wants is to make it go away. But he thinks about waking up tomorrow, blundering into the tiny bathroom and tripping all over Zach in this shoebox of an apartment where there’s nowhere Zach can’t be seen, heard, fucking smelled. He shakes his head. 

“I can’t,” he says. “I’ve got to go.” 

“Chris--” 

Chris’s throat constricts, and he shakes his head harder to make up for his apparent inability to talk. “No,” he croaks. “But thanks.” 

Zach hovers around as Chris gathers the rest of his stuff, looking about half a step away from wringing his hands. Mercifully, he says nothing, though Chris thinks he starts to a couple of times. All too soon, there’s nothing left to do, and then they’re at the door. Chris is suddenly very aware of his arms, which always seems to happen to him at watershed moments, good or bad. He shoves them in his pockets. 

“You’ll be in Japan, right?” he asks. 

Zach nods. “With bells on.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. It’s looking suspiciously red. Zach’s kind of a crier sometimes, and Chris decides he needs to get out of here before that happens. 

“Cool,” he says. He tries to smile, but his face feels brittle and the expression won’t form right. Across from him, Zach is looking less teary and more shellshocked. _Good,_ Chris thinks desperately.

“So, I’m going to--” Chris jerks a thumb at the door. 

“Text me when you get back to your hotel,” Zach says. “Please. It’s late and I’ll get worried.” 

“Sure.” 

“Chris, I--” Zach steps forward, and for a second Chris thinks he’s going to grab his arm and try to physically prevent him from leaving. He doesn’t, though, and he doesn’t finish his sentence, letting the words hang between them like so much else has tonight. 

“It’s okay,” Chris says, because it’s not actually okay but he wants it to be. “I’m pissed right now, but...I’ll get over it. Just give me some time.” 

“I’m sorry,” Zach says. 

“Thanks. For the record, though, I still think you’re being an idiot.” 

Zach smiles a little at that, sad and wan behind an overgrowth of stubble. “Maybe.” 

“Definitely,” Chris says. “All right, then. Later.” Three little motions. Step towards the door and pull it open, close it not with a bang but a whimper, and there he is on the other side, down the stairs and away.

***

Chris heaves the shovel over his head, enjoying the satisfyingly sandy thunk it makes as it connects with the dirt. The day’s just starting to get hot, which is why it’s a good thing he got up early. Because he’s almost done putting in this new bed and it’s not even eleven in the morning.

Chris loves his house. Out of everything the last decade’s brought him--people excluded, because it’s simpler that way--the house is the thing he can’t stop pinching himself over. He’d never admit it to a soul, but he might possibly have drawn on his obsession with his house to get into the whole “Jim Kirk’s silver lady” thing. Yeah. If Chris is Kirk, this house is definitely his _Enterprise_. There’s something about him that feels quieter here, as if a fractious piece of his soul can finally ease up. Maybe it’s got something to do with the geography of the place, the long drive up to where the lot’s tucked away in the canyons, the better to pretend Chris is some kind of post-postmodern homesteader, equal parts organic tomato vines and Keurigs. 

Speaking of which, Chris wants a coffee. 

A bead of sweat rolls into his eyes and he swipes across his forehead with the back of his hand as he walks into the cool of the house. He’s been back in LA for two weeks, and he’s managed to put in two new vegetable beds, build a retaining wall, meet with a contractor about retiling the pool, read four books, and avoid calling Zach. Calling, texting, _or_ emailing Zach. It’s been the most productive stretch of time he’s had in forever, and he feels better than he has in a really long time. Chris isn’t much of a moper, and he’s pretty sure Zach’s not just bumming around in New York staring at his phone either. If Chris sometimes wants to ask Zach his opinion on planting, despite having no idea if Zach knows a damn thing about gardening, or if he underlines a paragraph in _Pale Fire_ for Zach’s perusal before remembering the moratorium, that’s neither here nor there. And if he lies in bed before he falls asleep and lets his fingers drift between his thighs, pressing into the ghosts of old bruises that have faded to olive and lost their soreness...well, that’s nothing. That’s just sentimentality, and Chris never claimed not to be a little bit of a sap.

His last communication with Zach was on June 6, 2013 at 2:47 am, and it reads as follows: 

Chris: _Back._

Zachary: _Thank you for telling me._

Somehow, in those five words, Chris has managed to discern the shadow of a careful kind of pain. There’s something strangely parental about it; it’s condescending in a less infuriating way than Zach’s fucking test case speech, but Chris has the feeling Zach didn’t really mean it to be. Thank you for telling me, like he’s aiming for some kind of positive reinforcement. Thank you for making me feel better, now please continue to do so by fucking off back to California and pretending none of this ever happened. 

_Well, sure thing,_ Chris thinks. In a way, it’s probably better that this all happened on the tour. Better to let it live there in that nowhereland where rooms and lives are tidied while you’re off doing fun stuff and not worrying about anything real. Truth be told, he’s not sure what Zach wants from this post-Berlin interation of their friendship. He’s not sure what he wants. He’s not mad anymore, not really. Even when he thinks back to that night at Zach’s apartment, he’s at a loss to conjure up any kind of real anger. There’s just a hollow space somewhere in his chest that nothing seems to be able to fill. 

His cellphone rings, and his stomach flips. _Shut up, you, or I won’t feed you later_ he thinks ridiculously, rubbing his diminished belly through his t-shirt. 

The call is from Katie, which he should have seen coming. “Okay, what the hell,” she says. She’s driving and she’s got the window down, probably on the way to a lunch meeting or something. Katie always did like to multitask. 

“What the hell what? And you should probably hang up, I don’t support cell phone use while vehicles are in motion.” 

“You don’t support cell phone use _ever_ ,” she says. “Hence my call. You’ve been hermiting up there for two weeks.” 

“Katie--”

“And then you’re jetting off to wherever--”

“England.” 

“--To England for months and months, and I am going to see you before that happens. So help me.” 

He screws up his face. Ah, fuck. If he keeps deflecting, the end result will be some kind of intervention. Better to take matters into his own hands. “What are you doing later?” 

“Later?” she says, her voice immediately brighter. Goddamn Katie. 

“Yes, later. And you better hop on this train ASAP, because I reserve the right to rescind my offer at any time.” 

“You’re a jerk,” she says. “Fine, later. I’ll swing by the store after work and then head out your way. What do you want for dinner?”

***

“You should’ve brought the kids.”

The look Katie gives him over her glass of wine sends him into a hail of laughter, which almost makes him spit his own beer all over the grilling burgers. 

“Hey, watch it,” Katie says. “I’ve been looking forward to a Pineburger all day.” 

“I’m not sure there’s even a recipe for a Pineburger. I think it’s literally just a burger made by a Pine. Once I tried to ask Dad if there was, like, a secret spice blend and he looked at me like I was insane.” 

“Mmm,” Katie says, taking a contemplative sip of wine. “Are you sure?” 

“Maybe it’s the family secret,” Chris says. “It’s just a massive conspiracy and figuring it out is your rite of passage into manhood. Uh, metaphorically speaking.”

“Why is a raven like a writing desk? What’s the secret ingredient in a Pineburger?” 

“Something like that.” 

They’re out on the patio. The evening air is balmy and the breeze is ferrying mesquite smoke away from the house, so Chris has the door open. The sun’s just dropped behind the hills and an early bat is pirouetting through a cloud of bugs over the pool.

“Nice place you got here,” Katie says. 

Chris smiles at that, wide and genuine. “Thanks,” he says. “Not too shabby, huh?” 

She elbows him in the side. “You did good, little brother.” 

“Is this the part where you start asking when I’m going to settle down with that special someone and start fillin’ her up with kids?” He slides a spatula under each burger in turn, flipping them over. He’s making himself two just to be on the safe side. 

“Come on, I’m not Mom. Although even Mom’s pretty good about that, if I recall correctly from my own halcyon pre-kids days. But because I’m morbidly curious, how _is_ the whole love life thing working out for you?” 

“Oh my god,” Chris says. “Must we?” 

She heaves a put-upon sigh. “You are a slippery fucker, Chris. Fine. How are your friends, then?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Okay. I’m supposed to be having this drinks thing next week? Josh and Ellie kind of strong-armed me into it. But it’s turning into a mini-Berkeley reunion, so that’ll be fun, I guess.” 

“And your other friends?” 

Chris rolls his eyes. “Who are my other friends?” 

Katie likes to pretend that she doesn’t care about what Chris does for a living. She’s always said his lifestyle’s much too psychologically hazardous, though he’s not entirely sure whether that means Hollywood in general or Chris in particular. He’s not sure he actually wants to know.

“Everyone going their separate ways after all the press stuff?” 

“I guess? John’s here, but he and Anton didn’t do much press this go ‘round. Urban’s pilot got picked up, so he’s around too. Zoe was in France for awhile, um...” 

Katie’s eyes narrow, and Chris’s stomach sinks. She always was perceptive, his sister. He guesses it goes with the territory. He pokes at one of the burgers. 

“I think these are done. There’s salad in the fridge; I made that one with the avocado and the little mandarin oranges. And there’s buns and stuff--shit, I should’ve grilled them, sorry.” 

He picks up a plate, slides the burgers onto it. Katie’s still staring at him, but he escapes to the house to bring the rest of the food outside. So it’s not until they’re eating that she wipes her hands on a napkin, sets her wine glass down, and gives him this fucking knowing look that makes Chris wish she really had moved to Austria to train those dancing horses like she swore she would when she was eleven. Moved and never returned. 

“How _is_ that nice Quinto boy?” she asks, in a voice that so perfectly recalls their mother that Chris has to laugh.

“Who, Zach? Oh, you know. He’s back in New York for a little bit. He’s coming to the Japan premiere. And he’s doing, uh, that play this fall. On Broadway?” 

Chris has had the run of “that play” marked in his calendar for months, and he’s pretty sure he’s been yammering about it at length to anyone who will listen, including his family. So, he’s fucked, basically. 

“Hmm,” Katie says. “Okay.” 

Chris forces himself to smile. “He’s good,” he says. “He’s...Zach.” 

He manages to change the subject after that, opening another beer. Katie begs off because she has to drive. They finish dinner and Chris lights up a smoke to much sisterly tutting. Katie stares at it for five solid minutes before making a disgusted noise and snatching his pack.

“Ugh, you’re killing me. Give me one of those.” 

They sit there in silence for a few minutes. The crickets and frogs have started up their habitual symphonic din, and the bats are going gangbusters now, swooping in and out of the warm, soft cones cast by the patio lights. 

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Chris says. 

“Sure.” 

“What do you know about, like, self-protection? In the psychological sense, I mean.” 

“You mean like defense mechanisms, stuff like that?” 

Chris coughs, the acrid tang of smoke stinging his throat. He should quit. It’s getting kind of gross. “Um, yeah, I guess so,” he says, recovering himself. 

“Well, that’s like the meat and potatoes of neurosis,” Katie says, moving over to one of the lounge chairs and lying back. “I mean, think about it, right? Our whole lives are a series of attacks, of shit we have to cope with. You might say the essence of sanity is in how we play the cards we’re dealt.” She takes another drag of her cigarette. “That makes it sound a lot more voluntary than it actually is, don’t get me wrong. We’ve all got biochemical processes and social factors and all kinds of other shit going on that complicates things. Why do you ask?” 

“What? Oh, it’s...it’s for a role. I got this script, I want to do some research before I, uh, commit to anything.” 

“Oh, that sounds cool,” she says, sitting up a bit. “Want me to take a look at it?” 

He waves a hand dismissively. “Maybe later,” he says. “If I end up taking it. I was just wondering if there was anyone I could read up on.” 

“I mean, as in all things, it comes back to Freud,” she says, laughing. “Ego, superego, and id, baby. But there’s this guy at Harvard, Vaillant? He developed a whole classification schema that you might want to look up.” 

“Vaillant,” Chris says. “I should write that down.” 

“Here, I’ll text it to you. Assuming you know how to receive text messages.” 

He stubs his cigarette out and mimes tossing the butt at her. “Whatever, just because I’m not transmitting my every thought in however many characters a million times a day.” 

“140. And speaking of which, you should check out Zach’s twitter sometime. Pretty deep stuff.” 

Chris buries his head in his hands. “I’m going to drown myself in the pool,” he says. 

“Nah, don’t do that. Mom’ll be upset. And coyotes might fish you out and eat your face.” 

“How the hell are you allowed to practice psychology, Katie? Jesus.”

She snorts. “That’s rich. Who the hell told you you could act? ‘Oh, _Zach_? Zach’s good!’” She gets up, stretching her arms up over her head. “Ugh, okay, it’s getting late. Back to reality. Walk me out?” 

He does, and she’s mercifully reticent on both his acting ability and Zachary Quinto, and he doesn’t want to risk broaching the subject so he can ask what that little Chris imitation was about. He’s got a feeling he knows, anyway. At her car, she leans up and kisses his cheek. 

“Night, Chris.” 

He pulls her into a hug. “Goodnight.” 

Back in the house, he shuts everything down for the night and brews a cup of coffee, fresh from a trusty pod. _Talk about things from the future,_ he thinks. Coffee pods. a brave new world. He’s got a meeting with his publicist tomorrow morning and a lunch interview, but it’s still pretty early, all things considered. He takes his coffee into the office and sits down at the desk, flicking on a lamp and rubbing his eyes against the light, bright and close. He turns on his laptop and ferrets in a drawer for a spare notebook and pen. 

“Okay,” he says to Google. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris has a party.

Chris sighs, propping his hands on his hips and eyeing the cooler skeptically. “Are you sure we have enough beer?” 

Josh taps his lower lip with a finger. “Think so,” he says. “Although I can also text people with requests.” 

Chris shakes his head. “Nah, that’s a little too much like college,” he says. “I figure the least I can do to make up for my absentee status is provide the booze.” 

Josh cuffs Chris in the shoulder. “Come on, man, quit worrying about that. I told you before, everyone gets it. They’ve all got their own shit going on. And you forget, you were like this before you were famous.” He makes air quotes around the last word. “We’re all used to treasuring our rare visits to Planet Chris.” 

Chris tries to smack him on the arm for that one, but Josh ducks out of the way. He’s right, anyway. Chris has always been prone to disappearing. Nowadays, though, the only way to disappear is to sequester himself in his house. Couple that with the nomadic nature of his job, and the result is that Chris hasn’t seen some of the people invited to this party in literally years. 

Luckily, though, his friends aren’t the kind of people for whom that matters. Chris thinks as much later in the evening, his impromptu Berkeley reunion in full swing. He’s strung white, spangly Christmas lights up over the pool, and in a lone concession to actual adult-with-means-hood he’s rented extra tables and chairs, the kind that are draped in white sheets to hide the fact that they’re shitty fiberboard and metal and end up looking like they’d fit in at some kind Palm Springs desert oasis theme event. _Whatever,_ Chris thinks. At least there’s plenty of seating. And plenty of food, because he’s gotten catering from this Mediterranean place in Silverlake. A place Zach introduced him to, come to think of it, and wow, Chris...actually hasn’t thought about Zach for a while now. Unfortunately, the act of remembering seems to plunge him into some kind of positive feedback loop. Since the solution to that particular problem isn’t exactly forthcoming, the only alternative is to grab another beer and grab another friend and plunge himself into another conversation that’ll hopefully stand a chance at driving a certain lanky, dickish individual out of his head. 

It works passably well. Ellie blushes through a confession that she and Josh are going to start trying for a kid soon, which Chris makes alternately sympathetic and excited faces at while internally flailing in disbelief that this is a thing that his peer group is doing now. Chris has picked good people to surround himself with. Good, interesting people, and he finds himself eager to wrap himself up in these conversations about everything but acting, everything but Hollywood, everything but all the shit he’s spent the last couple months babbling about to complete strangers. 

He’s not like Zach that way, he thinks. Zach loves this stuff, breathes it, wants to get down into the guts of all these stories they tell and take them apart piece by piece. He wants to do it in all possible ways, which is why he’s so hot for producing, for creative control. That’s not to say that Chris doesn’t care about process, but he balks at the thought of making it his life. 

And here he is thinking about Zach again, which isn’t cool, especially under the circumstances. He’s been cornered over by the hummus by his friend Stella and a man she’s brought along. Tall guy, not bad looking. Chris has already been introduced and has of course promptly forgotten what the hell the dude’s name is. And naturally, Stella vanishes on them shortly thereafter, mumbling something about another glass of wine. 

“So,” the guy says. He’s definitely cute, Chris thinks, and that’s new, checking out a guy who isn’t Zach. Dark skin and eyes, looks like he works out but not overly...hunky. And he’s talking; Chris should probably be listening instead of ogling and amusing himself with terrible adjectives. 

“This is a really nice place,” he says. “What is it, ‘40s?” 

“Yeah, late ‘40s,” Chris says. “And thanks. You an architect or something?” 

“Or something,” he says, shrugging. “No, I’m just interested. I was kind of an architecture nut in college; I took some classes, but it never went anywhere. I do have the Lego Fallingwater, though. I build a mean miniature Frank Lloyd Wright.” 

Chris laughs. “Oh man,” he says. “I didn’t even know they made those. That’s kind of awesome, actually. So what do you do now, if not architecture?” 

“I’m a doctor,” he says. “Well, a fellow. I’ve got a year left.” 

“Hey, you’re more a doctor than I’ll ever be,” Chris says, because he’s not entirely sure what exactly a fellow is. The quip sounds really fucking stupid as soon as it issues from his mouth, but if Mr. Doctor notices, he doesn’t say anything. 

“I mean, you never know. Maybe you’ll play one on TV sometime.” He smiles, and if Chris didn’t know better he might think there was a tinge of flirtation there. But Chris is clearly an idiot when it comes to these things, so who the fuck even knows. 

“Sorry,” the man says. “I mean, I could’ve asked what you do for a living, but I figured I’d just come off like a jackass.” 

“What, you mean like I just did?” 

“Pssht,” the man says, tongue making a clicking sound against his teeth. “Whatever. Hey, you want another drink?” 

Chris’s bottle of beer has about an inch of warming dregs left, but yeah, he’ll take another drink. He’ll wait here under the lights until--

“Hey, wait a sec,” Chris says to the man’s retreating back. “Sorry, it’s just...I’m just really bad at names.” 

The guy turns and grins at him, an easy smile. Something about it unsettles Chris, and not in a bad way. “It’s cool,” the guy says. “I am too. I’m Jeremy.” He sticks his hand out again. Chris reaches out and takes it. 

“Chris,” he says. 

By the end of the evening, Chris has compiled a list of facts that would satisfy any high school-style rehash of the night’s events, if anyone was going to ask him for one. Jeremy is indeed a doctor, about to start his final year of a neurology fellowship at UCLA. He’s originally from Michigan, he has an addiction to Mexican food, and he’s just started doing triathlons in an effort to lessen the effect of the aforementioned addiction. “It’s rough,” he says. “I basically live at the hospital, right, and the best taco truck known to man parks right down the street. But my hours are a little better these days, so I’m giving it a shot.” 

As they talk, Chris is afflicted with the split-personality sensation he gets at moments like these, playing at introductions with a strange kind of double talk. Let’s both pretend you don’t know anything at all about me. It’s an exercise in narcissism any way you slice it, operating under the assumption that there’s anything about you worth reading up on or that, if there was, your conversation partner would care to do it. His old friends are different; his friends in the business are too, like everyone’s barefaced together after the same masquerade. But the people in between...that’s where it gets tricky, and if Chris is honest it’s part of why one-nighters and flings with actresses just feel easier most of the time. Unless you consider his thing with Zach, which Chris definitely isn’t. 

He tries valiantly to shake the feeling off. The beers help, and the company helps, because if Jeremy actually gives a shit about Chris-the-actor he’s doing a pretty bang-up job of pretending he doesn’t. 

They drift apart after awhile, Chris dragged off to take a bunch of pictures, ostensibly to prove this event ever occurred. Before he knows it, it’s pushing 3 a.m. and his guests make a collective decision to head out. Chris can’t say he’s disappointed; like it or not, he’s getting too old for this and he’s really looking forward to collapsing into bed. 

He’s shepherded the crowd to the door. Stella’s out in the driveway, grabbing at Ellie and gesticulating wildly at something, maybe the kids revelation. Jeremy’s there then, hanging back like he’s giving the two women space. 

“Hey,” he says to Chris. “Thanks for the hospitality, letting Stel bring me. It was fun.” 

“No way, man, the more the merrier. It was...it was good to meet you.” 

Jeremy looks off into the middle distance, chewing on his lower lip. Then he looks back at Chris like he’s made up his mind about something. “So, listen,” he says. “Would you, uh, would you want to grab dinner sometime?” 

There’s a weird moment where Chris isn’t quite sure he heard right, and then the forefront of his mind is abuzz with what to say. _Sorry, I’m not--_ and _That’s really nice of you, but--_ and _Wait, why the hell not?_ Somehow, this last is what he arrives at, and if there’s more than a shade of memory there of that night at Zach’s place--”test case,” fuck Zach, seriously--then Chris can’t exactly help it, can he? 

“Um, yeah,” Chris says. “That sounds good, actually.” 

Jeremy raises his eyebrow. “Actually?” 

“I just...no, I just meant--” 

“Give me your phone,” Jeremy says, because apparently everyone on the planet is less ridiculous than Chris. He’s got the good grace not to roll his eyes, at least. So Chris hands the phone over, and stands there feeling the burn of Stella’s sneaky grin as Jeremy enters each digit with the care of (Chris supposes) someone used to poking at brains for a living. “Call me,” he says. “My schedule’s nuts, but we can figure something out.” 

Chris has to hug Stella goodbye, so he and Jeremy end up doing this awful half-hug themselves that makes Chris want to die. 

After they’re gone, he flops on the couch and scrolls through looking for the new contact. Jeremy’s last name is Rackham, so it’s nestled on the screen just south of one Zachary Quinto. “Q, R, S,” Chris sings to himself. “Ugh, fucking perfect.” 

And then, like he’s been conjured from the ether, Zach is right there on the phone’s screen, this obnoxious picture of him in a hat and sunglasses that he’d insisted Chris add to his contact info. Chris sits there for second with no clue what’s happening, a hairsbreadth from throwing his clearly possessed demon phone across the room, when the thing starts to buzz and he realizes Zach’s actually calling him. 

“H-hello?” 

There’s murky silence on the other end, a faint scraping sound, and then: “Chris?” 

“Zach?” 

“Yeah? Did you call me?” 

“Um, no,” Chris says. Okay, maybe he should’ve thrown the phone when he had the chance. 

“Oh,” Zach says. “That’s weird.” 

“Pretty weird, yeah.” What’s weird, Chris thinks, is hearing him. Something about Zach’s tone of voice feels unguarded, and Chris wishes he could see. “What are you doing? What time is it there, like 6?” 

“Yeah, I guess. I’m in bed.” There’s that soft scrape again, which Chris now imagines is Zach moving around under the covers. 

He can picture it, which is not what he wants to think about at 3 am with a waning buzz and a waxing headache. _Hang up,_ says the part of Chris’s brain that still cares about self-preservation. _Hang up and go to bed._

But no, Chris isn’t going to do that, because Chris is an idiot. Instead, he stretches out along the length of the couch and burrows his feet beneath the cushions. 

“So is this late for you? Or early?” 

Zach laughs at that, huffing directly into the phone like always. “Late.” 

“Yeah, me too.” 

“You been out?” Zach asks.

“I had a party, actually.” 

Zach gasps exaggeratedly. “Be still my heart,” he says. “Chris Pine throwing a party. I can’t believe I missed it.” 

Chris actually feels a pang at that, damn him. “It was kind of a reunion,” he says. “Friends from Berkeley who’re still in town, you know.” 

“That’s cool.” 

Then silence. Chris can hear Zach breathing on the other end of the line. He wonders if he’s gone to sleep. Chris is struck with the same semi-desperate clenching feeling from that night at Zach’s place. It’s a feeling that he’s realized, by virtue of its absence here in LA, is omnipresent whenever Zach’s around. 

“It’s been awhile,” Chris blurts. 

Zach coughs. “Yeah,” he drawls afterwards. “Yeah, it has. So why don’t you fill me in, Pine.” 

He sounds a little dreamy. Chris imagines him with the phone pressed between the pillow and his ear, eyes half-closed. He remembers all those nights on the tours, before Berlin, especially. Zach drowsing in front of foreign televisions, Chris without the heart to wake him. 

“I’ve been pretty busy,” Chris offers. “I’ve, um, been doing a lot of stuff with the yard. I put in a new retaining wall.” 

Zach snorts. Still awake, then. “What the fuck is a retaining wall?” 

“You know how my house is kind of like nestled into the hillside?” 

“ _Nestled?_ ” 

“Yeah, you know, like…” 

Zach dissolves into laughter. 

“Dude, shut the fuck up,” Chris says, but he’s smiling fit to burst. He’s not sure how it’s possible to miss someone so fervently based on a one-sided conversation about a retaining wall, but here he is, apparently. 

“I miss you,” Zach says, like he can hear Chris’s thoughts. “When are we going to Japan?” 

“Like two weeks.” 

“Mmm. Are you going to bring your camera and go traipsing around again?” 

“I can’t stay,” Chris says. “I’ve gotta go back to New York for some more _Jack Ryan_ stuff and then it’s on to London. It’s going to suck; I’m going to die of jet lag.” 

“Ah, the life of a princess,” Zach says. “How could I forget. Remember what we said, though. That night.” 

“What? Oh, yeah.” Their toast. Clink of brown bottles together on the couch, before Chris made a mess of things. 

“Chris, look, about that night--” 

Chris scrubs a hand over his face. “Don’t,” he says. “You don’t have to...you don’t owe me anything, okay? You explained yourself perfectly well at the time. And I told you, I get it.” 

Zach sighs into the phone. “I still miss you, though,” he says. “I can’t help it.” 

“Me too.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

Zach drops his voice an octave. “So what are you wearing, Christopher?” 

Chris laughs, a dark heat unfurling in his belly even as he does, because somehow Zach is able to imbue even the cheesiest of lines with sex. 

“Aren’t you about to go to sleep?” His voice sounds shaky, he thinks. He’s not sure he cares. 

“So what?” 

_So aren’t we supposed to be done with this?_ Chris wants to ask. Should ask. But fuck it, he thinks. He does miss Zach, but it’s not like it’s crippling or anything. Zach’s the one who’s got something at stake here, if what he said that night was true. And it’s not Chris’s job to protect him; it never has been. Chris has never exactly had a lot of responsibilities where Zach is concerned. 

“Chris?” 

“Hey, yeah,” Chris says, clearing his throat. “Sorry. I was just thinking.” 

“Well, stop,” Zach says. “And tell me what you’re wearing.” 

“Seriously? Okay. Um, a t-shirt and jeans.” 

“How creative,” Zach says dryly. “What kind of jeans?” 

“I don’t know,” Chris says. He’s no good at this, and he’s not completely sure what Zach wants out of it, anyway. “Regular jeans? Not tight.” 

“Whatever, you and I both know they’re some artisan denim shit that cost like five hundred bucks. What kind of fly?” 

“Button. You’d be pissed if you were here; it’d take you too long to figure out.” 

“It’s not my fault your goddamn jeans are like a finger trap, Pine. Now unbutton them.” 

Chris slides a hand up under the hem of his t-shirt. His skin feels hot, and with his eyes closed he can almost imagine it’s Zach touching him, pressing half-moons into the soft skin of Chris’s stomach. “Huh?” 

“Pay attention,” Zach says, a little petulantly, “and unbutton them for me.” 

Zach’s tone makes Chris bite his lip. He can feel his dick pulsing in his pants and he grinds the heel of his hand into it before he does as Zach says, working the buttons open. 

“I can get these open in like two seconds,” he says. “I don’t know what your problem is.” He lifts his hips so he can shimmy out of his jeans, kicking them aside. 

“What are you wearing under?” Zach’s voice is softer. Chris wonders where his hands are. 

“Briefs,” Chris says.

“Good. I like you like that. Are they tight?” 

Chris hadn’t known Zach had an opinion on his underwear one way or another. “Yeah,” he says, which seems like the right answer because he hears Zach suck in a breath. 

“Touch yourself,” Zach says. “If I was there I’d touch you.” 

Chris skates his hand over the top of his briefs, fingers spreading to cup himself through the cotton. 

“If I was there,” Zach’s saying, “I’d jack you through them. Or I’d try. You’d get frustrated. You’d ask me to take them off.” 

Chris tries to fist himself through his underwear. Zach’s right; he can’t get good purchase, the fabric making it impossible to get his hand all the way around his shaft. He makes do, the sensation dulled infuriatingly. “Fuck,” he says. “That’s--”

“I know,” Zach says. “What do you want, Chris?” 

“I want you to touch me,” Chris says, without thinking. He rolls over onto his side, trapping the phone between the couch and his ear. He throws his free hand across his eyes, as if Zach can see him all the way in New York, see him sprawled across his couch with his jeans on the floor, rubbing himself through his underwear. 

“I bet you do,” Zach says. “You’re so hard for it already, aren’t you? You were the second you got a hand on your fly.” 

“Would you?” Chris asks. “Touch me?” He needs to hear it. He’s got his eyes screwed shut, and Zach right there in his ear, and it’s almost good enough.

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Zach says. “I might make you stand up. I could make you stand over by the wall and keep your hands flat on it, and then I’d pull your pants down and eat your ass instead.” 

“Christ,” Chris says, gritting his teeth. He feels hot all over, his skin cloying. 

Zach’s breath catches. Chris is pretty sure he’s jerking off too. “Yeah, I think that sounds like a pretty good idea, actually,” Zach says. “Your ass in those fucking briefs, Pine. I think we should get you something fancier, though. Something black and silky and tight for your ass to hang out of.” 

“Zach,” Chris says. “ _Zach_ , can I--” 

“No.” The no-touching rule in Zach’s fantasy scenario is suddenly applicable to the real world, and Zach’s breathless with it. Chris tries to picture what he looks like, his dick flushed dark and heavy as he jerks himself faster. He imagines the underwear Zach’s talking about, tries to swap out smooth, liquid silk for the drag of damp cotton. 

“I miss it,” Zach is saying. “I miss that ass of yours. The way you take it; you’re so good, Chris, so good for me--” 

Chris makes a sound that could possibly be construed as a whine. God, he’s fucking close already; it’s not going to take much, and Chris wants it. He could flip over, hump into the couch. Or he could just slip his hand under his briefs and jack himself off, but he somehow has the feeling that Zach will know if he does. 

“Fuck, Zach, come on, let me.”

“Let you what?” 

“You know! Come _on_ …” 

“Ask me,” Zach says. 

“Let me do it,” Chris babbles. “Let me touch myself, c’mon, please--” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, voice sprawling out into a moan. “Yeah, okay.” 

Chris doesn’t have to be told twice. He’s got his dick out in what feels like milliseconds, groaning with relief as he closes his hand around it and runs his thumb over the head, smearing pre-come as he does. _“Ah,”_ he gasps. He feels so hot, like he’s burning up all over, and he yanks his t-shirt up. 

“Talk to me,” he says to the phone, readjusting it beneath its ear. “Zach--” 

“If you were here,” Zach says haltingly, “if you were here, I’d sit you on my lap in those fucking panties and fuck you ‘til you shot in them.” 

“Oh my god,” Chris mutters. He’s not sure when this scenario morphed into underwear kink, but he couldn’t care less because he can see the image in front of him like he’s watching it on a TV screen and it’s hot as hell. Chris riding Zach, those long arms wrapped around him, holding Chris still so Zach can get purchase and fill Chris up. Straining fabric, sodden with come and lube. 

His ass twitches around the ghost of Zach’s dick, and Chris shoves two fingers into his mouth, reaches back to slide them between his ass cheeks and press against his hole. He cries out as he pushes inside; it stings a little, but mostly it’s the way it’s suddenly, shockingly, not enough. His shoulder twinges as he tries to go deeper, but it’s not working, so Chris just stays there, trying vainly to fuck himself and jerking his dick like it’s going out of style. His phone is plastered to his cheek, and he thinks wildly that if it wasn’t for the advent of touchscreens Zach would be getting an earful of pressed buttons right about now. 

“Yeah,” Zach is saying. “Yeah, you’d--oh, Chris, oh _fuck_ \--” 

His speech dissolves into a breathy string of not-words, and that’s enough to push Chris over the edge, picturing the slightly worried look Zach gets when he comes, the way he grabs at Chris and mutters all kinds of crap he’ll never own up to afterwards. Chris gasps and shoots, some on his hand but mostly on the floor. He lies there panting for a few minutes, coming down. He’s buoyed by matching sounds coming through the phone, finally reconciling into Zach’s voice. Chris has never wanted him more, and the way the realization cuts him is breathtaking. Zach’s giggling, trying to talk through it. Chris should really say something to him about his issues with inopportune mirth. 

“That was…” 

“That was dumb,” Chris says, rubbing his eyes with the heel of a hand. “Is the sun up there yet?” 

“Mmm, I can’t tell. The curtains are drawn.” 

“Look at you, ensconced in your garret with the curtains drawn,” Chris says. He can practically feel the answering eye roll over the line. 

“Look at you, _nestled_ on your hillside.” 

“What was that even about?” Chris asks. “Uh, that just now, I mean.” 

Zach makes a noncommittal sound. “It’s way too late for this, Pine. Too early. Too something.” 

Chris sighs. “Maybe.” 

Zach hums. “My bed is so fucking comfortable right now. Where are you? Are you in bed too?” 

“I was on the couch in the living room, if you must know.” 

“Impromptu couch wanking,” Zach says, as if he hadn’t incited the whole thing. “I like it.” 

Chris growls in return, because though the orgasm seems to have eliminated all trace of his nascent headache, it’s brought with it a familiar post-coital lassitude that makes even the trip from the couch to the bed seem monumental in scope. Once he makes it there and crawls under the covers, though, he has to give it to Zach. Bed is pretty damn sublime.

“You still there?” he says to the phone. 

“Mmm.” 

“Okay. I’m here too. In bed.” 

“Mmm,” Zach says. “Good. Sing me to sleep, Christopher.” 

Chris doesn’t, but he does stay on the line until he passes out. In the morning, his alarm blares rudely from beneath the spare pillow, and he has a long accidental voicemail from Zach consisting of the white noise of rustling sheets, the distant blare of a car horn, and a single incidence of vaguely canine snuffling. 

He doesn’t delete it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris goes on a date and goes to Japan. One is arguably more successful than the other.

Chris isn’t expecting to hear from Zach after their phone call, which is good because he doesn’t. 

He frowns at his phone anyway and thinks about the notebook stashed in his desk drawer, filled with pages of scribblings on what he’s pretty sure is mostly pop psychology. He’s skeptical of what the all-knowing Internet can actually tell him about his non-relationship with Zach. It’s an occupational hazard of growing up with a psychologist mom; most people assume that that entails uncomfy couch sessions and Freudian analysis over breakfast, but Chris grew up blissfully ignorant of the myriad twists and turns of the human psyche. No, those were left to him to blunder through himself. 

Chris remembers hearing his mother ranting on the phone once when he was in high school; a colleague’s friend had gotten hold of her daughter’s therapy notes under the guise of professional interest, and to hear Chris’s mom go on about it you’d think she’d uncovered a small-scale Stanford Prison Experiment right there in the San Fernando Valley.

The point is, Chris’s mom doesn’t talk shop at home, and while Chris might play at diagnosing Zach, he knows he never can. Zach’s in therapy, real therapy. He’s a therapy veteran, even, which is more than Chris can say for himself. Katie and his mom--and Zach, apparently-- treat it like a tune-up on a car. Routine, going in to get your oil changed and your head right. Chris has never gotten into a groove with therapy, though not always for lack of trying. He thinks he does okay, though a select few might beg to differ. He wonders if Zach would be among them. 

So what is he looking for, when he looks this stuff up online? Who fucking knows. A way into Zach’s brain, maybe. A way to ascribe Zach’s readiness to end things to something other than Chris. 

“This is stupid,” he tells himself aloud one day, pencilling “REACTION FORMATION” in neat block capitals in the margin of his notebook. And it is. Because, look, if it’s just about the sex...well, there’s nothing stopping Chris from finding more of _that_. And if it’s more than the sex--it’s not, though. It’s not more than the sex. Zach is hot, okay, and Zach and Chris are hot together, and Zach and Chris were-- _are_ \--friends. Which yeah, Chris misses, and which they’ll get back to just as soon as whatever this is dissipates.

Which it better, because in seven days they’re off to Japan to be Kirk and Spock. Chris concedes that not having had inexplicably, incandescently hot phone sex might have helped that process along somewhat. 

But hey, he’s only human, and tonight he’s a human with a date. Dinner with a man. A man date. _Mandate_ , Chris thinks, brain relentlessly wordplaying. If he did have a therapist, he’d have one hell of a topic for today’s session. 

He gets up early and runs, pounding up hill after hill on the route he takes when he doesn’t want room for anything in his head but pain and endorphins. In the shower, he prods at his body and frowns. Is he supposed to, like, shave parts of himself? Is this a potential-sex kind of date? He has no grounds for comparison. With women, he figures he’s good to go with basic hygiene and cologne, specific body hair preferences to be determined at a later date. That’s just going to have to work today, because there’s really only one person Chris can think to ask and that is sure as shit not happening. 

He meanders through the afternoon, driving over to Eagle Rock to a bookstore he’s heard good things about, then to the grocery store for a bottle of wine he spends way too long choosing. An employee notices his indecision and starts talking to him authoritatively about vintages and varietals. When she offers up an example of what she calls a “big leathery Italian,” Chris politely freaks out and excuses himself, grabbing a bottle of Cabernet with a not-hideous label and the first bottle of white he sees. Safe in the car, he inspects the label: a Riesling. Which he hates. He makes a face at it and wedges it down on the passenger side floor mats to think about what it’s done. 

They’re meeting up at 7:00 at Jeremy’s place. “I’ll cook,” he says on the phone. “I figure it’s easier.” _For you_ , he doesn’t say, and Chris feels a familiar but no less pricking resentment at the extent to which simple social mechanics, above all things, are complicated by fame. 

“Sounds good, man,” he replies, forcing a smile at his empty bedroom in hopes it will shed some brightness on the words. 

“Cool,” comes the reply. “You bring the wine.” Chris smiles again at that, a real smile this time.

“On it,” he says, and he is. Mostly. 

He’s at Jeremy’s at 7:00 on the dot, and when he opens the door Chris hoists his wine bottles high like he’s just bagged them out in the wilderness. Then he hastily hands the white to Jeremy, because he’s pretty sure he looks like a tool.

“Oh, Riesling,” Jeremy says with a poorly concealed lack of enthusiasm. 

Chris sighs. “I know, it sucks. It was an accident.” 

“Don’t let him hear you say that, you’ll scar him for life,” Jeremy says, clutching the bottle like an infant. “No, but seriously, this is a terrible development. Do you still have the receipt? Maybe you can take it back.” 

“Um--” 

“Later, I mean. Not tonight. Now come _in_ ; it has been a long-ass week and I am ready for a drink.” 

They open the red and stand around in the kitchen talking. “I’m making this one-dish pasta thing,” Jeremy says. “Hope you’re not insane about carbs.” 

“No way,” Chris says. “I never met a carb I didn’t like.” 

“Look at you, defying expectations already.”  
“What, you thought I was going to be some primadonna? I mean, we do have a mutual friend, it’s not like--” 

“Relax,” Jeremy says, swirling the wine in his glass. “I’m kidding. And I could be talking about anyone in this city. Obsession and preoccupation with this crap is not unique to your profession.” 

“Los Angeles,” Chris says, shaking his head. “It’s wild. Sometimes all I want to do is get the hell out, but I’m not sure that’s ever actually happening.” 

“Yeah, it seems like you’re kind of wedded to the place.” 

“For better or worse,” Chris says, smirking a little at his pun. “What about you, you planning on sticking around here?” 

Jeremy pours a curl of olive oil into a pan and turns the gas on. “Not sure,” he says. “I could get hired on where I am now, which would be okay. I guess I’ll start putting feelers out next year and see who bites. But I’m from Chicago, so that’s where all my family is and everything.” 

He inspects the oil and leans over to open the refrigerator, his shirt riding up a little as he does. Chris looks, and is slightly weirded out by looking. It’s new. Jeremy emerges with a plastic container of diced onions and garlic, which he opens with his teeth and tosses into the pan. They start to sizzle. “Sorry, I know this is like the laziest thing ever, but I figure it’s better than losing a finger because I’m so beat trying to cook post-call.” 

Chris holds up his hands. “Hey, at least you’re cooking. If I were you I’d probably own stock in that taco truck you were talking about the other night. So, Chicago--where’d you go to med school?” 

“Out there. I was so psyched to match in L.A. for residency; I swear I had a ceremonial bonfire for all my winter clothing.” 

“Well there you go,” Chris says. “Now you can never go back.” 

The pasta thing is awesome; lots of cheese and pancetta. Chris’s contribution to the evening, besides the wine, is the construction of a spinach salad. He sets the salad bowl in the center of the table and tops up their wine glasses. This is...surprisingly domestic for his first actual date with a dude. He thinks he likes it. It’s low-key, at least. 

“So, thanks for inviting me,” he says, when they’ve taken their seats and clinked glasses over laden plates. “And thanks for cooking.” 

Jeremy smiles across the table. “Thanks for coming,” he says. “I, uh, might’ve had a bit of a panic attack in the car on the ride home, like what the hell was I thinking asking out the fucking movie star host of the party I crashed.” 

Chris doesn’t know what to say to that, so he takes a deflecting sip of wine. He looks at his plate, finally managing to take a bite of pasta after chasing it around with his fork for what feels like five minutes. “This is kind of mean,” he says. “Making me work for it.” 

“I figured I’d level the playing field.” 

“Dude, you get inside people’s heads, literally. I just screw around in front of cameras for a living. And you didn’t crash the party, all right?” 

Jeremy shrugs. “Maybe not. But it’s a good meet-cute, don’t you think?” 

It totally is. Chris’s face feels hot. His mouth is greasy, though, so it’s not suspicious at all that he chooses this moment to employ his napkin for an extended period of time.

***

After dinner--Chris forgoes Jeremy’s offered ice cream--they take their wine into the living room. Jeremy lives in a bungalow, the kind of place real estate listings euphemistically describe as “cozy,” except it actually is. It looks a little spare in places, the way homes get when they’re not especially lived in, which is not actually unfamiliar to Chris.

“I had a roommate for awhile,” Jeremy says. “Well, first he was my roommate and then we were together, which--” 

“Oof,” Chris offers sympathetically. 

“Yeah, it was...not a great situation. I’d come home all zombied out and we’d, like, stumble into bed. And it was good, you know? So eventually we thought, why not, let’s just give it a go. It lasted about four months, plus the bonus month it took him to find a new place after we broke up.” 

“That sucks,” Chris says.

“Yep. Anyway, after that I was making enough to justify having my own place, so I figured I’d give it a shot.” 

Chris started living alone as soon as it was humanly and fiscally possible. Frankly, the thought of sharing space with anyone on a semipermanent basis gives him the same itchy feeling as he gets from thinking about kids. But that’s not exactly a sanctioned first date conversation, so he keeps it to himself. 

“So what about you? Dating must be interesting for you.” 

Chris makes a show of his overlarge gulp of wine. “Pretty much. I...I haven’t really been in anything serious in awhile. I travel a lot. You saw it yourself at the party, probably. It’d been forever since I saw some of those people.”  
He opts to leave out the part where none of the people he’s dated were male. He’s not an idiot; Jeremy obviously quizzed Stella on him at some point and he’d never have asked Chris to dinner if he hadn’t at least gotten a green light on the whole “into dick” thing. She knows enough about his history to assume that somewhere along the line Chris might’ve hooked up with a guy or two and to pass that information along accordingly. He doesn’t mention the thing with Zach. Even if they were in some alternate universe where Zach wasn’t also famous, where privacy was less of an issue, Chris has no idea how he’d even begin to describe their whole deal. Anyway, fuck it, right? He’s here, and Jeremy asked _him_ out, and Chris doesn’t need to pull out some scorecard, for him or for anyone. 

“I hear you on the scheduling thing,” Jeremy says. He shrugs. “Whatever. Sometimes it’s fun to just hang out and see where stuff goes. I’m too busy and tired half the time to give a fuck anymore.” 

Chris leans back. “Jaded thirtysomething neurologist,” he says. “That’s, uh, that’s a good look on you.” Fuck, his face is hot again, and Jeremy’s staring at him with an intensity Chris is at a total loss to interpret. 

“I see that and raise you one jaded thirtysomething actor. Speaking of which, how do you feel about watching a movie?” He runs a hand over his hair reflexively. “Unless you want to call it a night.” 

He says it nonchalantly, but Chris doesn’t miss the out staring him in the face. _If you’re not into this, if you’re not feeling it, here’s your opening._ The thing is, though, Chris is actually kind of feeling it. 

“I like movies,” he says. 

“Cool,” Jeremy says. He gets up to grab the remote, and when he sits back down he’s noticeably closer to Chris. 

They end up watching _The French Connection_ after Chris advocates for _Paris,Texas_ ,conceding on the grounds that it’s kind of a downer. It rapidly becomes clear that this is one of those movie-watching experiences that’s really more about proximity on a couch. Their hands end up side by side on the cushion, and when Jeremy lowers his on top of Chris’s, Chris wants to laugh. Apparently, some things are constants irrespective of either age or gender of participants. 

“What?” 

He shakes his head. “Nothing. Just haven’t done this in awhile.” Which is true, because whatever he and Zach were, there was nothing tentative about it. 

Jeremy scoots even closer and slides an arm around Chris’s waist, pulling him in close. “Let’s get the awkward part over with, then,” he says. “Like pulling off a band-aid.” He leans in and kisses Chris softly on the mouth. 

Later, Chris will try to avoid any kind of side-by-side comparison, but being that he’s had full-on sex with a grand total of two men, he guesses it’s only natural. Sex with Jeremy is different than sex with Zach, in ways that Chris isn’t even sure he can quantify. He’d say that maybe it was just the fact that he and Jeremy are basically strangers, but he’s not really sure that covers it. 

It’s not a bad thing; it’s not even that obvious. It’s like sleeping with anyone for the first time, a pleasurable slow-motion train wreck that always makes Chris wonder how the hell humans ever got anywhere in the first place. 

Jeremy is a good kisser, gentler and less toothy than Chris is used to. He feels a little like he’s floating. The whole scene feels dreamy: the wine, the movie muted in the background and flickering softly. Chris finds that he’s the one who takes the lead, rolling on top of Jeremy and slipping a hand up under his shirt. He feels like he wants to ask if this is okay, if everything’s okay, but the sounds Jeremy’s making and the way he’s surging up into Chris’s body make the answer clear. 

_Okay,_ thinks Chris. _I can handle this._

He presses the heel of his hand to the crotch of Jeremy’s jeans and grins at the obvious erection he finds there. He feels strangely accomplished. He squeezes the back of Jeremy’s neck, scratching lightly at the skin there, his free hand falling to Jeremy’s fly. 

“Do you, um,” Chris says, letting his eyes flick downwards. 

Jeremy nods. “Yeah,” he says. “You wanna go in the other room?” 

Chris wonders briefly if there’s some hidden double meaning to this question that he’s not getting, and for a second he’s struck with the precipitous sense of extreme discomfort he associates with feeling out of his element. It’s the stuff of freshman orientations and his early days on film sets, and he hasn’t felt it in awhile. He’s not the biggest for huge leaps of faith; he tends to stick with what he knows and branch out from there. Which is...theoretically what he’s doing, only there’s a guy with a hard-on between his thighs, a _different_ guy, and it doesn’t feel familiar at all.

“I promise the sheets are clean,” Jeremy says, like something as prosaic as basic hygiene has anything to do with what’s going on in Chris’s stupid, overanalytical brain right now. 

“No, it’s not...gah, forget it. Let’s go.” 

“You sure?” 

_Oh god, is this code for something? Zach held out on me, didn’t he, that asshole--no, shut up, brain--_ “Yes,” Chris says. “I’m absolutely 100% sure.” 

“Well, okay then. I’ll lead the way.” Jeremy shoots him a querulous look as he scoots out from under Chris and gets to his feet. Chris wants to pull the neckline of his shirt up over his face and screech, but he refrains. 

Jeremy’s bedroom looks like the rest of his house, a little too neat. Chris’s Zach shoulder-devil offers up a comment about the preponderance of Ikea, but Chris quashes him/it and turns his attention back to business. 

Jeremy flicks off the overhead light and turns a lamp on, throwing shadows on the wall and casting them both in a yellow glow. Chris feels that loose-ends arm thing again. He wonders if he should take his shirt off. Luckily, Jeremy does so first, undoing his buttondown and tossing it over a chair, following suit with his white undershirt. He’s lean, like Chris expected, but not extremely so, and he’s got a hint of softness around his midsection that Chris feels a kind of kinship with. And there’s not a whole lot going on in the body hair department, which is also new. Shit, maybe he should’ve shaved. 

Chris belatedly realizes he’s standing there staring, so he yanks off his own cardigan and t-shirt, not bothering to undo the buttons on the sweater. Should he take his pants off? He should. He does. He doesn’t miss the look Jeremy gives him, hungry. Chris is kinda hard still. 

“Hi,” he says. 

Jeremy sits down on the bed and pulls back the comforter. “Hi,” he says. He stretches out along the bed and undoes his fly, shimmying out of his jeans. “You should come over here.” 

“Um,” Chris says, but he does anyway. Jeremy’s wearing blue boxer briefs and Chris can see the bulge of his dick delineated under soft, pilly cotton. There’s something vaguely charming about those pills, and he finds himself wanting to touch again, now that the jeans situation has been dealt with. He does, reaching out a careful hand and tracing him through the fabric. Jeremy’s eyes flutter closed and Chris feels a twist of lust in his belly. 

He slips his fingertips under Jeremy’s waistband, the first joint of his fingers pressed against warm skin. Jeremy’s mouth falls open. Chris gets his dick out carefully, handling it like a live thing. He’s thick and cut and hardening in Chris’s hand. Watching it happen, Chris feels shot through with a heady burst of power. He wonders if this is what Zach feels, what he felt when he unmade Chris all those times. He pushes the thought out of his head. Besides, Chris has a long way to go before he unmakes anyone. 

He straddles Jeremy’s supine body on his knees, leaning in to kiss him. They sit that way for awhile, Chris jerking Jeremy slowly, gradually working up a rhythm to the way he circles his own hips until he’s grinding against Jeremy’s thigh and their breath is coming in gasps. Chris watches his hand work Jeremy over, watches the way his hips come up off the bed like they’re trying to follow. 

“Is it okay if I--” He leans down, laying a palm to Jeremy’s hip. He can feel the beat of his pulse there.  
“Yeah,” Jeremy says. “Yeah, please.” 

Chris isn’t so practiced at blowjobs, but word on the street is that he more than skates by on natural talent. It seems to go over pretty well. Chris feels a faint tingle at the back of his head and then a cautious hand comes to rest in his hair. He thinks about Zach in these quiet and fraught moments. He can’t help it, the way his mind wanders during sex. Some small part of him waits for the fingers to yank, for the bite that shoots across nerve endings and makes his eyes water, but none of it comes. He guesses he should be happy about it, that the greedy way Zach takes his mouth might be a little much for a first date. 

_Suck it, Pine, come on._

Chris moans and takes Jeremy deeper. Above Chris on the bed, he’s saying something. Something good, from the sound of it, but then his hands are on Chris’s shoulders. 

“Come...come up here,” he says. “I don’t wanna come yet.” 

“Huh?” Chris’s eyes are dry, and he blinks them into focus. Jeremy drags him up the bed, leans over and fishes around in the nightstand. He tosses lube and a condom onto the mattress in between them. 

“You good?” 

Chris blinks. “Uh, sure,” he says. _Sure? Who the fuck says that?_ “I’m down if you are. You want to--” 

Jeremy reaches down and squeezes Chris through his own briefs. “I want you to fuck me,” he says quietly. 

Chris swallows. “Fuck,” he mutters, feeling blood rush to his face. So, theoretically he’d assumed that this might be on the table, but hadn’t ever actually considered it. He’s thought about it plenty, but always within the framework of Zach, who’d made it clear on more than one occasion that when it came to him, bottoming was essentially a sex unicorn. A sex unicorn that is currently making eyes at literally blushing not-quite-virgin Chris. 

“Is that--” 

“Yes,” Chris says hurriedly. “That is...more than fine.” 

He’d had one girlfriend who was into anal, mostly when they were both drunk and sloppy. She kept a single bottle of lube in her nightstand for these occasions, never frequent enough to warrant replacement. Once, toward the end of things, it had run out, and she’d simply shrugged, rolled over, and gone to sleep. Chris had disposed of the empty bottle in the bathroom trash, and wasn’t around long enough afterwards to learn if she’d replaced it. Those nights had been light years from this one: the light on, Jeremy spread out in front of him on the bed. Chris flips open the top of the bottle and squeezes what he thinks is a generous amount onto his fingers. He scoots up the bed, cups Jeremy’s cheek in his clean hand and kisses him. He slips his other hand low to press a finger to his hole. 

Working him open is like nothing Chris has done before. The slickness of lube and skin, the heat, the clasping tightness of it, gradually slackening. The way Jeremy takes it, letting his head loll back against the pillows, eyes mostly closed and silent but for the occasional hitch of breath or soft moan. Chris is so hard now. He’s still wearing his underwear and he’s got a veritable tent going on in them, every twist of his fingers and every subtle reaction they provoke seeming to send a fresh pulse of blood down into his dick. 

“God, come on,” Jeremy says finally. “I want you.” 

“Okay,” Chris says. “Okay.” 

He slides his fingers out, pulling his underwear off and wiping his fingers on it thoughtlessly. He doesn’t care; he’s got no room for thought about things like that. He rips the condom packet open and is struck with a visceral sense-memory, Zach kneeling between his legs and holding a square of foil out for Chris to open with his teeth. He shakes his head just slightly to dispel the image, shoulder-devil Zach disappearing again in a puff of smoke. 

_Have fun, Christopher._

_Don’t worry,_ Chris thinks. _I intend to._ He rolls the condom on. 

“How do you want me?” Jeremy asks. He’s still on his back, knees bent, the curve of his ass slightly flattened against the comforter and his dick so hard, right there for Chris to touch. 

“I don’t know, what do you like?” 

“You’re fucking hot,” Jeremy says. “Fuck me like this; I want to see you.” 

Chris smiles at that, but something about looking Jeremy in the eye seems like too much. He looks down at the bed. “Yeah, I want to see you too,” he says. 

He lines himself up and presses inside, falling forward onto his arms and letting his head list down. Their faces are so close; Jeremy tilts his up and then their mouths nearly flush, just shy of kissing. 

“Oh fuck,” Chris says. “Oh, oh--” 

It’s nothing like his drunken misadventures back in the day. Chris feels present for this with every cell in his body. All he can feel is the hot slip of his dick into Jeremy, the way he clenches around Chris. “Are you good?” 

“Ah,” Jeremy moans. “Yeah, I’m fine. Come on, harder.”  
Chris moans at the encouragement, sinking in deeper and moving his hips in a tight circle. He closes his eyes, letting their mouths collide and retreat as he thrusts in and then out again. Jeremy shifts his legs up, clamping Chris’s body with his knees and angling his hips so Chris can get even deeper. 

“Yeah, right there,” Jeremy says tightly. “God, that’s--” His words are overtaken with a pleased whine as Chris evidently gets his angle right. Jeremy moves his hand between their bodies and begins to jack his dick, slowly at first but then racheting up to match Chris’s shaky rhythm. 

“I’m close,” he says. “It’s been a little while, I’m--oh, _fuck_ that’s good, that’s--don’t hold off, okay? Fuck me hard.” 

Chris feels like he’s barely hanging on, like he’s going to fly off into space somehow and listening to puny Earth directions is beyond him at this point. But he manages to drag himself back to attention, because it sounds like he’s being given license to--

“Huh?” Chris mutters. 

Jeremy grabs at Chris’s ass with his free hand encouragingly. “Harder,” he says. “Come _on._ ” Chris wonders if this is what he sounds like when he’s getting fucked. This is the part where Chris usually starts to lose it, get right up to the edge and beg for Zach’s seemingly endlessly variable stream of dirty talk to push him over. He can’t imagine asking for that now, though, even if Jeremy seemed like he could oblige. So Chris picks up his pace and focuses on the angle, on the burn in his ass and abs as he thrusts, on Jeremy crying out and shooting between them. He might imagine a deep voice at his ear, whispering ever-so-slightly terrible things as he chases down his own orgasm. Might. But then he’s coming and collapsing next to Jeremy on the bed, then dealing with cleanup and tossing the condom and all the things Chris usually doesn’t take care of. And then they sleep, and when he wakes up he can’t really remember.

***

Chris and Jeremy both have shit to do the next day, so there’s not a whole lot of morning-after awkwardness, for which Chris is grateful.

“Give me a call when you’re in town next,” Jeremy says, after Chris explains about Japan and London. “If you want to, I mean. I had fun.” 

“Yeah, me too,” Chris says, draining the last of his coffee. He crosses the kitchen to the sink, rinses it out and sets it on the sideboard. 

Jeremy inspects his phone. “Crap,” he says. “I’ve gotta head out. Looks like I’ve got a patient who’s not doing so well.” 

Chris is tempted to make some kind of joke about that being the best ironclad excuse ever, but he decides it would be in poor taste. “I have a meeting,” he says by way of agreement. Time to go. “Walk me out?”

In the driveway, Jeremy snakes his arm around Chris’s waist and pulls him in close, kisses him lightly on the lips. “Take care, Chris,” he says. 

“You too,” Chris says. Driving away, he takes stock. He feels different, lighter somehow. He likes it. 

Predictably, the week flies by, and before he knows it Chris is shutting the house up and hauling an overpacked pair of suitcases out to a waiting car. He probably won’t be back here for awhile. He’s bummed about it, like he’s had just enough time at home to ease back into some semblance of routine and normalcy before the inevitable cold-water awakening. His funk lasts him all the way to Tokyo, despite the increasingly pressing need to get back into people mode and smile like he means it. He still hasn’t heard from Zach, although both of them were copied on a Paramount email summarizing the schedule for the next few days, so they’d know each other’s itineraries if either of them chose to pay attention. 

Chris ends up sharing his appointed towncar into the city with a bleary Alice, who refuses to remove her sunglasses and falls asleep on Chris’s shoulder adorably. After check-in, she disappears post-haste, ostensibly to find her room and collapse into bed. Zach’s flight got in a few hours before Chris’s, so Chris doesn’t really count on seeing him until their photocall tomorrow morning. He’ll probably be sleeping, or out partying in Tokyo or something. Appreciating what he has in the moment, or whichever irritatingly Zen credo he’s applying to his life these days. Chris bets he’s got it on a t-shirt in Tibetan script. 

Chris should go find his room, freshen up, and see if there’s anything planned for this evening. Last time, some of the Paramount Japan people took them out to dinner and it was kind of awesome, but he could also get behind an early night. He’s headed to the elevator when it happens. No, he’s _in_ the elevator, alone and zoning out for just a second before hitting the button for his floor, and wouldn’t you know it, that second is all it takes. 

“Can you hold it?” calls a voice. 

The doors start to close, their enclosing slide aborted by a lanky, sweaty Zach leaping between them. He lurches inside, his momentum carrying him to the back of the car where he leans against the mirrored wall and blinks at Chris. 

“Hey!” he says, and the smile on his face is so wide and clearly genuine that it temporarily wipes all recollection of the past few months from Chris’s short term memory. 

“Hi,” Chris says back, hesitating for just a second before dropping his bags and going in for a hug. 

“Ew, no, I’m all gross. I was out running.” 

“Bring it in, man, c’mon. I’ve seen you way worse than this.” 

“Pssht, no you haven’t.” 

Just for that, Chris cradles Zach bone-crushingly in his arms and rocks him back and forth, muttering facetious sweet nothings in his ear over shrill protests. It feels good, Chris thinks as he finally relinquishes his death grip after much bitching and moaning. It feels normal. 

Of course, since it’s them, normalcy only goes so far. 

“Where’s your room?” Zach asks when they get to their floor, snatching the little paper keycard envelope out of Chris’s hand. “Oh, cool, I’m right down from you. You wanna go get changed? I’ll shower and we can go exploring.” 

“Zach--” 

“There’s this artisanal whiskey bar I heard about; it’s supposed to be amazing, and the owner screens classic films and this week’s theme is noir. I already checked. So I thought maybe that, and then--” 

“Zach.” 

“Huh?” Zach’s brain is clearly going a mile a minute. Chris remembers the hotel lobby in Berlin. It’s funny, he thinks. He’s come to think about it with a kind of bemused fondness, but now all he feels is stressed out, the idea of traipsing around Tokyo in Zach’s wake nothing but exhausting.

“I’m really freaking tired. I think I might just get room service and go to bed early.” 

Zach looks crestfallen for a second, but then the look is gone, replaced with a tight and automatic smile that’s worlds away from the bright true thing in the elevator. “Oh,” he says. “Well, okay.” 

“But you should go out; it’s Tokyo, man. You should go have fun.” 

“Yeah,” Zach says. “I should. I don’t know, though. It’s not as--” he shakes his head. “This stuff’s more fun with you.” 

Chris runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was a long fucking flight, and I’ve got a headache. I think I’m dehydrated.” 

Zach smirks, but there’s a softness to it somehow that wasn’t there a minute ago. “Poor Christopher,” he says. “Go take an aspirin and drink some water. You’re so bad about that on planes, you never drink.” 

“I hate--” 

“--having to get up and take a piss, yeah, I know. Are you claustrophobic or just lazy?” 

Chris rolls his eyes, opening the door and propping it with a foot while he lobs his way-too-heavy duffle bag up and into the room. “You know, Quinto, what I always miss most about you is your sparkling wit.” 

Chris does as he says he’s going to, taking a steaming-hot shower and ordering room service, which he eats mindlessly on the bed while staring at the television. He gets a text from Zach a couple hours later, asking if he’s sure he doesn’t want to come out, to which he replies with a single _Yes._ He decides that’s maybe a little terse, so he adds a _Have fun_. He half expects some kind of drunken visitation in the wee hours, but either it doesn’t happen or Chris is too deeply asleep to notice a knock on his door. 

The next morning, he wakes up before his alarm, rolling over in bed and staring up at the ceiling. He feels better, he thinks. Calmer, less bent out of shape over the grave injustice of having to leave L.A. The weird hollow feeling in his chest is still there, but he thinks maybe he’s getting used to it. Being around Zach again, however briefly...he’s not sure whether that’s contributing to his mood or not. 

As if on cue, his phone buzzes. 

_Are you dead?_

Chris grins at it. _Yes. Typing from beyond the grave._

_Cool. Come haunt me. We can reenact that scene from Ghost._

Chris is trying to think of an appropriate response when he hears a distinct sound from the hallway: Zach, giggling. Probably at his own joke, because he’s an egotistical dickhead. 

He drags himself out of bed, tempted to bring the comforter with him. He opens the door to find Zach leaning up against the wall outside, predictably hunched over his phone. 

“Are you taking pictures of the wallpaper?” 

“It’s cool looking,” Zach says, not even bothering to deny his bizarre addiction to “mobile photography,” which is not and never will be the new photojournalism. 

“Don’t--” 

Zach looks up and fixes Chris with a withering look. “I can’t tag you if you don’t have an account. For the hundredth time.” 

“Whatever, dude. What are you doing lurking around out here anyway? Why didn’t you just knock?” 

Zach looks vaguely guilty at that, though Chris isn’t sure why. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to bug you if you were still tired.”  
“Well, I’m not. Or, I am, but I’m up so it doesn’t really matter.” 

They look at each other for a minute. Zach has a smear of what must be toothpaste at the corner of his lip, and Chris has the distinct urge to reach out and wipe it away. He crosses his arms over his chest instead. Zach follows suit. 

“You...you wanna get something to eat?” Zach asks. 

Chris isn’t sure what he wants to do. Standing out here with Zach is disorienting somehow. Maybe it’s the pattern on Zach’s cool-looking wallpaper, or the fact that Chris is still in his pajamas, or that stupid toothpaste. Still, Chris’s motto in life is basically “when in doubt, food,” which would seem to answer the question for him. It’s sound advice, anyway. Chris stands by it. 

“Sure,” he says. 

They decide on room service, because Chris still has to get ready. Zach sits on the edge of Chris’s unmade bed and flips through the menu.

“You can order,” Chris says. “You know what I like. I’m going to go shower.” 

He takes his outfit in with him and changes behind the closed door, and if Zach notices he doesn’t say anything. Chris emerges from the steamy bathroom fully dressed, toweling at his hair. His shirt rides up and he feels Zach looking. He’s kicked off his shoes and sits cross-legged on the bed, leaning back on Chris’s pillow. There’s an intimacy to it, Chris thinks, sitting where someone’s just been sleeping. He crosses to the bed himself and sits on the end, the space between them palpable. Zach raises an eyebrow. 

“Sorry,” Chris says. “I’m just trying to--” 

“I know,” Zach says. “Thanks.” 

“You act like we can’t even be in the same room without jumping each other,” Chris says. “We managed it fine for, like, years.” 

“We did.” Zach sounds unconvinced, and Chris struck by the suddenly incredibly pressing need to change the subject. 

“So, how’re things? How’s New York?” 

“Oh, you know,” Zach says. “Same old.” 

“Same old? You’re one of those obnoxious people who thinks New York is the capital of the universe.” 

“I do not. And it’s fine. It’s fun! I’ve been going to lots of parties with lots of beautiful and interesting people, is that what you want to hear?” 

“I don’t _want to hear_ anything, I’m just wondering,” Chris says. 

“It’s fine,” Zach says again. “I got Skunk and Noah back from the boarding place for a little while, and--” He’s interrupted by the cheery _boodloop_ sound of a text, and he fishes his phone out of his pocket to check it, because he’s Zach and god fucking forbid he go a second without full connectivity. His thumb swipes across the screen and lingers, and then he smiles and bites his lip. The gesture, however unconscious, feels like a punch to Chris’s gut. 

“Who is it?” he asks, trying to sound casual. 

Zach is replying to the text, his thumb flying over the too-small keyboard with practiced ease. “What? Oh, it’s...” He grins again, then sets the phone back on the nightstand. “It’s nobody.” 

“I went on a date,” Chris blurts. 

Zach is still looking at the phone. “Oh yeah? Who’s the lucky girl?” 

“Um, guy, actually,” Chris says. 

Zach looks at Chris. _Fuck,_ Chris thinks. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Across the bed, Zach hugs his knees to his chest. Chris sees something flash across his face, an expression too fleeting to name, and then his earlier smirk is back, this time without the soft edges.

“Wow,” he says. “I...what can I say? I’m impressed.” 

“Thanks?”

“So where’d you meet him? Grindr or something?” Zach’s tone implies this is the last place Chris would ever meet anyone.

“I...don’t know what that is. No, he’s a friend of a friend. We met at that party I had, the night we--” 

Zach smiles into his hand. “Yeah, I think I recall the night in question.” 

Chris fights a blush. “Uh, yeah. That night. Anyway, he’s cool. He’s a doctor.” 

Zach sniffs. “Ooh, a scientoost. Won’t your mother be proud.” 

Chris has to laugh at that, and then the food comes and Zach’s ordered a traditional Japanese breakfast so he has to laugh at that too. Any jokes Zach might have made at Chris’s expense are more than made up for by watching Zach sip his miso soup and try to pretend he’s not looking longingly at Chris’s scrambled eggs and hot buttered toast. 

“Miso is so good for you,” he says, watching Chris’s mouth.

Chris takes a huge bite of toast. “Awesome,” he says as he chews.

Zach rolls his eyes and chases a stray cube of tofu around his bowl with the spoon. “You’re a neanderthal,” he says. “I don’t know why I even put up with you.” 

“Because you love me,” Chris says without thinking, regret flooding in on about a half-second delay. Just long enough. 

Zach freezes, staring down into his soup. Chris notices his thumb, nail chewed to the quick, skin angry pink against the white of the bowl. “We should go soon,” Zach says after a minute. “It starts at 10:30.”

***

The premiere and associated rigamarole are crazy, crazier for Chris’s somewhat compromised emotional state. The fans turn out in droves, and while they’re all perfectly nice and polite there are just...so many of them. It pushes past strange into plain funny after awhile, Chris and Zach and Alice all shoved into the corner of an elevator trying to take a picture with what feels like a hundred of their closest friends looking on. There’s actually something to Zach’s credo, Chris thinks. Trying to live in the moment, appreciate your opportunities for what they are. He could probably stand a little more of that himself, especially the days when everything starts to feel like a yoke he’d like to be able to remove and replace at will.

The premiere itself is a spectacle, Chris and Zach dressed to the nines again and presented with a gigantic gong they’re supposed to strike ceremoniously. Zach peers out at it from backstage and turns back to Chris, eyes wide and face awestruck, the awkward moment from breakfast apparently forgotten. 

“Oh my god, Chris. It’s taller than we are.” 

“What? No it’s not.” Chris leans across him to get a look himself. “Holy shit,” he says. “It totally is.” He smacks Zach on the shoulder in excitement. “That is so freaking cool.” 

So they go out and do it, bang the gong with abandon, and Chris is going to have T. Rex in his head for the next forever. He really couldn’t care less, though, because he’s on a stage in Japan banging a fucking gong in front of a screaming crowd and the man on the other side of said giant gong is smiling wider than Chris has seen in a long time, so into it and so careful to get it right. Zach’s fervor makes Chris’s heart want to burst, and as they finish their gong-ing and come back together, Zach mouths something Chris can barely hear over the roar of the audience and the blare of music and all Chris can think is how badly he wants to kiss him.

It’s a problem. 

Afterwards, there’s another party. Chris hangs with JJ and some of the publicity team, cutting himself off after one toasting glass of champagne and spending the rest of the night sucking down sparkling water. He’d feel virtuous, except for the fact that he can’t stop thinking about the alternative all of a sudden. He wonders if Zach’s thinking the same thing; he’s been cloistered over in a corner with Alice forever, alternately cracking up and hunching over some app on one of their phones. He hates how he feels watching them, hates the ugly clutch in his chest, and if it’s like this with _Alice_ what would it be like with--

 _Stop right there, Pine,_ he tells himself. He forces himself to go over to them, passing his drink from hand to hand reflexively. 

“What are you guys so into over here?” 

Alice smiles up at him. “We’re going to do a walking tour of temples tomorrow,” she says. “Zach’s mapping us a route. You should come; we’re going just after breakfast.” 

“He can’t,” Zach says before Chris can respond. “He’s flying out tomorrow afternoon.” 

Alice turns back to Chris, mouth set in a moue of disappointment. “No, are you really? Chris!” 

He shrugs. “You know how it is,” he says uneasily. Zach’s watching him, but as soon as Chris looks down to meet his eyes he turns away, turns back to that damn phone. 

“So, look, this one should be like a twenty-minute walk from that place we wanted to go for lunch, and then _this_ one is supposed to be a really amazing example of period architecture--” 

Chris sighs. He should go back to the hotel; he’s managed to strew his stuff all over the room and he swears his suitcase gets smaller every time he has to pack to leave. He watches Zach and Alice for a minute longer, blonde head and brunet bent over their project. He thinks about Zach, grinning fit to burst over that gong. 

“I’m going to go,” he says. “I’ve got to--” 

They’re not listening, or maybe he’s just not speaking loud enough, but he feels like an asshole repeating himself either way. He sets his water glass down on the nearest available flat surface and beats a hasty retreat, nodding to anyone who notices him, silently praying nobody wants to have a conversation. 

Outside, a light rain is starting to fall and the air is steamy with it. Chris can feel the light cotton of his dress shirt sticking to his chest almost instantaneously. The doorman calls for a car and Chris shrugs out of his jacket, draping it over his arm and squirming in his shirt as the sticky fabric clings. He taps his foot on the sidewalk. Come on, he thinks. 

“Hey, Pine!” 

Chris lets his eyes fall closed. When he opens them again, Zach’s at his elbow, hands on his hips and eyebrows deployed. 

“What the hell? You just disappeared on us.” 

Chris shrugs. “You were busy.” 

“Sucks that you’ve got to head back, man. Those temples are going to be amazing, and I was reading about this Shinto shrine that has these huge gates carved out of cypress...” 

Chris’s car pulls up, and Zach trails off. “So, guess this is it for a little while,” Chris says. 

“Maybe I’ll come by when I get back,” Zach says, sounding almost apologetic. “I’d ride back with you, but we’re still planning.” 

“It’s cool,” Chris says. “And about later...I think I’m just going to call it a night.” 

“You still tired?” 

“Yeah. It’s like you said before, my circadian rhythms are all screwed up.” 

Zach presses his lips together. “How’s your head?” 

“Better. I’ve been drinking a bunch of water.” And he has, it’s true. Why he feels somehow reluctant to admit it, however, is a mystery to him. 

Zach smiles, looking pleased in a way that plucks at Chris. “Good,” he says quietly. 

Chris glances at the car, the driver a shade beyond the tinted windows. Chris imagines him impatient with these ridiculous Americans, out here dancing around something. “I’d better--” 

Zach leans in and hugs him, tight and intimate, pressing the length of his body flush with Chris’s. That clutching feeling is back, but it feels a little blunter now, more bearable. Zach presses a kiss to Chris’s temple and Chris pretends he didn’t, lets his hands fall from Zach’s back down to his sides so he can shove them in his pockets. He nods at the car, and Zach nods at him, and just like that he’s gone. They’re both gone. 

In the car, Chris stares out the window and watches the neon warp past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the "leathery Italian" comment was actually spoken to me by a server at a wine bar last week. It went unappreciated by my tablemates.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris receives many phone calls and accidentally comes out to Anna Kendrick.

Chris has been in England for a month and a half now, and he thinks he’s settling in pretty well. The movie is insane in the best way possible, just completely over the top and, like, Streep-filled, and Chris really needs to keep tabs on his phone in case someone discovers the dozen or so creeper shots of Meryl being a freaking legend. He already showed them to Anna, though. She gets it. 

“Okay, maybe we should swear to secrecy in blood,” she tells Chris at the craft tent one day. “But I’ve got, like, a Meryl folder on my laptop.” 

“Oh my god,” Chris says. 

Anna makes a face. “I know, I’m gross. You can’t tell.” 

“No, you need to send me those. I’m going to make a scrapbook.” 

On his downtime he goes into London, which is getting more familiar to him by the day, little corners starting to feel like his own. He goes to a bunch of fashion shows, which he thinks is kind of a hilariously Zach thing to do, and which he’d probably call attention to via text if they were doing that. Except they’re not, which Chris...Chris is at a loss about, frankly. 

He hasn’t heard much from Zach since Japan, and as much as he wishes he weren’t counting he totally is. The last time they talked was his birthday back in August, and Chris suspects Zach only called because he was embarrassed about having forgotten when it was. The conversation had been short, not really enough time to get awkward but not enough time for much else, either. Since then, nothing. 

He’s been copied on a couple of group emails, _Trek_ people and other mutual friends, but now that the press tour is over those are slowing down too. The thing is, it’s not even that strange--this is what happened after the last movie came out. They’re actors, for god’s sake. They’re busy. But Chris didn’t feel this way then. There was always a certain base level of awareness that if he called Zach, if he emailed or texted, it would be received and replied to in good faith. That’s gone now. 

He doesn’t guess there’s much he can do about it. Zach’s the one with...with feelings, after all. Chris just has whatever he has. A ball of confusion, or something. He sees Jeremy one other time, during the same stint in L.A. as Zach’s birthday phone call. They go for a run together, then have sweaty sex in Chris’s living room, shower, and go out for burgers. It’s hot. It’s also easy, and Chris thinks that if casual sex with guys is this low-key he’s going to have to seek it out more often. Jeremy is cool. He’s smart, obviously, and he’s kind and funny and all the rest of it, but Chris has an inkling they’ve about maxed themselves out in terms of a relationship. Nothing big, nothing dramatic; there’s just...something missing. Maybe they’d even find it, if they spent enough time together--the sex is certainly good enough. But time’s the one thing neither of them has, and Chris can already see that Jeremy’s not completely copacetic with the unique concerns that relationships with celebrities entail. Not that Chris can blame him, of course.

Halfway through their burger date, a group of photographers gather on the corner outside the restaurant. At first there’s just a slow trickle, but soon enough they start massing, and for a solid five minutes Chris tries to figure out who the poor sap is, before--

“They’re not here for you, are they?” Jeremy asks. 

“Aw, fuck,” Chris mutters into his iced tea. 

They finish quickly, Chris tossing a bill on the table that more than covers the check because he can’t be bothered to wait around and let them get a million more shots of him with ketchup all over his face, mouth full of food and any potential sense of romance or amity sucked straight out of the air. 

“Look, just...just keep your head down and head to the car,” Chris says on the threshold. “Don’t engage, and don’t say anything. And...I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry for what?” Jeremy asks, and Chris just shakes his head. 

“You’ll see.” 

He doesn’t bother looking for the inevitable pictures the next day, and he hopes Jeremy doesn’t either. And now he’s left L.A. again, and maybe they’ll see each other next time he’s in town and maybe they won’t. Whatever happens, Chris is pretty sure it’s going to take place in the privacy of someone’s home. Jeremy never really asks him about his sexuality, about coming out, about any of that, and while Chris is grateful in the moment he thinks it’s a conversation they’d probably have had if there was any kind of longevity in the cards. He’s not entirely sure how to feel about any of it. 

So, England. He settles into the routine of this new set, falls into a relatively easy camaraderie with some of the cast and crew, and continues not to hear from Zach. 

Which is why, when he gets the first phone call, he’s not actually expecting it at all. He does the time zone math--it’s just past last call in New York. He’s in his trailer, bone tired and sipping a beer, trying to muster the energy to drag his ass back to the hotel and get some sleep before another early morning tomorrow. He sighs. But it’s futile, he knows. There’s no way he’s not going to pick up the phone. 

“Hello?” 

“Christopher,” Zach singsongs. 

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out.” Chris says. He’s not angry with Zach, not at this precise moment, anyway. He can feel it, though, easily accessible like a shitty kind of superpower. When did that happen, anyway? When did he get so baseline pissed at Zach?

“What are you doing?” Zach asks, his voice immediately lowering. Chris’s dick gives a corresponding Pavlovian twitch, because yeah, Chris knows what this is. He knew when the phone rang. 

“Sitting in my trailer. Getting ready to go home and go to bed.” 

“You alone?” 

“Yup. Let me guess, you’re alone too. And you’re at home, in bed. With the lights out.” 

Zach makes a sound Chris can’t quite place. “You got me,” Zach says, voice slightly muffled. 

“You haven’t called me since my birthday.” Chris reaches down and rubs the heel of his hand over the crotch of his jeans. 

Zach exhales. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, I just...I thought that’s what you wanted.” 

_Bullshit,_ Chris thinks. _It’s what you wanted._ “I don’t know what I want,” he says instead, because that’s true too. 

“You still want me?” There’s bravado to the question, a hint of arrogance as usual, but there’s something else too. Chris is sure of it. 

“I always want you,” he replies. 

Zach’s quiet for a second. Then, “Yeah, me too.” 

_This is so stupid,_ Chris thinks. _We are being so fucking stupid._

“Tell me,” Chris says, and for a moment he’s pretty sure neither of them just means sex. For a moment, Chris is scared out of his mind. His trailer is dead silent. Chris sets his beer down on the side table and swallows. 

“Tell me what you’d do,” Chris says, like he’s clarifying, and the moment passes. 

Zach exhales. “Get your dick out,” he says, so Chris does. 

It’s not the same as that other time, after Chris’s party. Chris can’t put his finger on why. He just knows that if he closes his eyes and tries to forget about that little rectangle of technology clutched in his hand, he thinks that he can picture them. Kneeling together on Zach’s bed, lights off and Zach’s mouth hot at Chris’s ear, whispering things that manage to be both filthy and sweet at the same time. Zach’s hand between Chris’s legs, closing around him in a rough caress. Chris’s head on Zach’s shoulder or their foreheads resting together, breath mingling, Chris reduced to gasping like a fish once again under Zach’s deft touch, the way his words know how to crawl inside of Chris and squirm just right. 

All at once, Chris is sobbing out his orgasm, hand wet and warm with it. He opens his eyes to blink at the thin lamplight of the trailer again, and Zach’s not there anymore. When Chris recalls the phone, finds it resting on the back of the couch, he finds the call’s been dropped and Zach’s not there at all. 

He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, brings out a wad of toilet paper to clean up the couch. Then he calls Zach back, the phone ringing through for a long time before he finally picks back up. 

“Did you fall asleep?” Chris asks. 

“Kind of. I thought maybe you did; you just disappeared.”

“I must’ve lost track of the phone. I was distracted.” 

Zach laughs, and the sound cheers Chris like a cup of something warm and comforting. He wishes he was in bed, that he could just drift off to sleep with Zach at his ear. 

“We’re so good like this,” Chris says.

“Yeah,” Zach says, after a few seconds’ hesitation. “We are.” 

_I miss you so much_ , Chris thinks, and his whole chest aches with the truth of it. 

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, listen, I--” 

“Right,” Zach says, voice clipped. “I should go too. Gotta get up early tomorrow.” 

“But--”

Zach’s managed to hang up before Chris can tell him to wait, to stop, that that wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all.

***

Zach calls back the next night. This time, Chris is in bed. He’s not asleep, though, just reading, and by some miracle--or just by virtue of the previously apparent end of their feedback loop---not staring at his phone. He has to get up and fish it out of his bag when it rings.

“Hello?” Chris says. 

“Is this a bad time?” 

“No,” Chris says. “I’m just a little surprised, is all.” 

“Why?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you haven’t called me since August and now you’re two for two.” 

Zach sighs. “I know,” he says. “I said I was sorry. And I am, okay? I just...the way you were in Tokyo, it seemed like you needed a break.” 

“We’ve been on a fucking break since June,” Chris says. “I thought we’d be past this by now.” 

“Chris--” 

“Nah, forget it. I’m sorry. We can talk about something else.” 

They do; they talk about the play, and Chris’s movie, and the secret Meryl pictures, which Zach predictably finds hilarious. 

“That is so fucking weird,” he says. “I’m so glad you’ve got a partner in crime who’s just as nuts as you are, though.” 

“I know,” Chris says. “Anna’s a trip. I wish you could come over here; we could all go out.” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, sounding suddenly distracted. “That’d be great.” It’s the sort of non-answer he gives when he’s trying and failing to do two things at once. 

“If you’ve got, like, email to check or something--” 

“No, no,” Zach says hurriedly. “Sorry. Closing the laptop now.” 

“God, I’ve got you so pegged, Quinto.” 

“You do indeed. Luckily for me, it’s mutual.” 

They don’t have phone sex, that night or most of the rest of the nights that follow. Only most, though, because Chris is weak and Zach has a hot voice and just _says_ things sometimes that get to Chris. Then, before they both know it, they’re gasping down the line at each other as Zach tells Chris how he thinks he’d look with a pink handprint on his ass or how he wants to fill Chris up with progressively larger toys ‘til he’s as stretched as the guy in that eggplant porno Chris knew he’d live to regret ever bringing up, Chris finishing up by coming helplessly all over the towel he’s taken to bringing to bed the nights Zach calls, just in case. 

Chris was right; they are good like this. They have fun like this, even on the nights the sex stuff doesn’t happen. Zach goads him into tracking down a little travel Scrabble board, declaring Words With Friends and its ilk an abomination. They play a drawn out game over a couple nights, operating on the honor system, until Chris gets extra pissy over a challenge-- _baleen_ , seriously?--and Zach’s sore about missing a turn when it obviously proves to be legit. (“What the fuck do I know about whales, Christopher?”) He swears he didn’t throw the bag of tiles across his bedroom, but Chris definitely heard something.

***

Chris doesn’t just spend all his time off set sitting around waiting for Zach to call. That, after all, is hardly living in the moment, which he’s trying to do more of these days. One weekend he takes the train up to Edinburgh alone, nothing but an overnight bag and his book for company. Okay, so the book’s on his tablet, but Chris has never claimed to be totally analog. Saturday is raw and full of bluster, weather either perfect or terrible depending on who you ask. Chris has a peacoat and a really thick sweater and spends a thoroughly pleasant afternoon getting windblown and chillblained regardless, prowling the city’s backstreets. He finds a bookshop, possibly magic, a hole-in-the-wall that he’ll be lucky to ever find again, the kind of place that seems to have been there for centuries yet still manages to evade mapping. He finds a warm corner and a book--a real book, this time. He sinks semi-consciously onto the floor and gives himself over to another world so easily that it’s almost reflex, the smell of drying leather and foxed old pages elemental and succorous. There’s a shop cat, a calico with big yellowy-green eyes, and she takes up residence at the end of Chris’s aisle like a sentry.

After he pries himself away from the books, inevitable purchases in hand, he buys himself a coffee and sits in a cafe while the light starts to seep out of the sky, iron-grey stratocumulus clouds chasing across a brassy sunset. Next week is Halloween, and after the dark comes in Chris lets himself get a little scared on the walk back to his hotel. Just an atmospheric tingle, though, more M.R. James than American Horror Story. 

Chris likes to be alone. He imagines himself here with a woman, imagines himself as the version of Chris who’d still want that, free of any complicating factors. 

_You’re not gay._

Chris remembers that night like it was yesterday, remembers thinking so clearly that Zach was right, no hesitation or qualification. Almost 6 months on, though, he’s not sure he’d be so quick to agree. Not that it really matters, to him anyway. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t still like girls. He just...hasn’t been in that frame of mind lately. Which isn’t to say that he can’t get into that frame of mind again--he doesn’t exactly have a hard time meeting women when he goes out, and he’s got a few numbers in his phone courtesy of his nights out here so far. The most notable of these was the night he met up with Benedict, but that had actually been a little frightening.

He should call one, that blonde maybe. She was funny, and she reminded Chris of precisely no one. 

His next weekend trip isn’t quite so introverted. Anna has some friends visiting, and they drag him on a ridiculously touristy trek across London that Chris enjoys despite many protests to the contrary. 

“Quit your bitching,” says Christine, who’s rapidly becoming his favorite of the trio of visitors, and not just for obvious reasons. “You’re going to get on the fucking doubledecker bus with the rest of us uncultured plebes and you’re going to like it.” 

Maybe he just likes being bossed around. But whatever, once he gets over himself he has a lot of fun. Anna and her friends are funny, and nobody seems to notice them, any double-takes apparently mediated by the perceived improbability of a couple of A-minus list actors traipsing around London’s tourist attractions. 

But Chris draws the line at the wax museum. 

“No. It’s fucking creepy, and you’re not going to convince me otherwise.” 

“Come _on_ ,” says Anna. “What if you get super famous and one day they make a wax Chris Pine? What are you going to tell them? ‘Sorry, Madame Tussauds, I can’t come to the unveiling of my alternate wax self because I think it’s creepy?’ Because I can tell you right now that that’s a dick move.” 

“You know, Anna, I think I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I’ll be sure to give it serious thought while I wait for you at that coffee place over there.” 

Christine glares. “Disappointing,” she says. But later that night they all go out, and she totally makes out with Chris in the cab they share back to the hotel, and it’s pretty hot. And Anna only hates him a little bit when she finds out, so Chris considers the trip an overall win, the spectre of wax notwithstanding.

***

A few weeks later, Chris is having an odd night. He’s out in London with some friends from the crew, and they’ve hit their third bar. Chris isn’t really into it, though. It’s a cool night, rainy, and in the close warm air of the packed room Chris finds himself wanting to be outside instead. He downs his beer and taps the closest guy--Geoff--on the shoulder, leaning in close to his ear to be heard over the music and the roar of conversation.

“I’m going to head out,” he says. 

“You sure?” 

He nods. “Going back to the hotel. Breakfast tomorrow?” 

Geoff looks crosswise at his own drink. “Better make it brunch,” he says. “All right; take care, man.” 

Chris retrieves his jacket from the coat check and wrestles it on as he leaves the bar, turning up the collar against the wind. He can walk back to their hotel from here. He’s buzzed but not drunk, and he decides that were he to perhaps make a phone call to help pass the time on the walk back, his chances of embarrassing himself aren’t any worse than normal. He thinks briefly and somewhat out of the blue about calling Jeremy, just to say hi, but he has no idea what he’d be interrupting if he did, or if it’d even be welcome. Zach, then. It’s not too late here, so it’s downright early for Zach in New York. 

He hits send, waiting as the funky international ringtone drones on, heralding the cell signal’s dauntless series of hops from satellite to satellite. Somewhat anticlimactically, he gets Zach’s voicemail. 

“Hey, it’s me. Um, Chris. I was on a walk and I just...felt like saying hi. Okay, call me later. Okay, bye.” 

Chris grimaces. He’s always been incapable of leaving a decently  
coherent message. He walks a couple more blocks, trying to decide if he should stop and get something to eat. There’s a McDonalds around the corner from the hotel, but thinking about shitty (delicious) burgers and just plain delicious fries only puts Chris in mind of Zach’s no doubt horrified reaction, which just makes him want to talk to Zach even more. 

_Fuck it,_ he thinks. He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials Zach again. The call still takes forever to connect, and just when he thinks he’s going to get voicemail again, Zach picks up. 

“Chris? Is everything okay?” 

“What? Yeah, why?” 

“Oh...I don’t know. I just...it was weird that you called twice like that. Never mind.” 

“Are you busy?” Chris asks. 

“Um, kind of. I’m at dinner.” There’s a tell tale pause in the middle of Zach’s sentence, followed by what sounds like a sharpish inhale.

“Are you outside smoking?” 

No reply. He’s totally outside smoking.

Chris smiles at that, shaking his head. “Dude, I thought you were going to quit.” 

Zach makes a noncommittal noise. “After the play, maybe. It’s too hard if I have to do it onstage every night.” The thought makes Chris want a cigarette too. He lights one, feeling a nonsensical kind of camaraderie he definitely isn’t going to tell Zach about. 

“Where are you eating?” He takes a drag, blows it out his mouth around the words.

“Oh, just this little bistro. It’s newish, it’s in the West Village. I don’t think it was open last time you were here.” There’s an apologetic cant to his voice, as if, had the restaurant been open, of course Zach and Chris would have gone. Makes Chris wonder what the place is like. 

“Who are you out with?” A throwaway question; Chris doesn’t know that many of Zach’s New York people. 

“Just some friends.” 

“Hmm,” Chris says. “Okay. Well, I guess I should let you go. But, um, if you wanted to give me a call later--” 

Zach sighs. “About that,” he says. “I think we should maybe give it a rest again. Not the talking; the talking’s good. Just...the other stuff.” 

“Why, what is it?” 

Chris knows, though. He wishes he didn’t, but he can practically see Zach now, pacing in and out of the beam of a streetlight and screwing up his face the way he does when he’s watching a movie and can tell something bad is about to happen. 

“I’m seeing someone,” Zach says, all in a rush. 

Chris saw it coming, albeit just barely. It knocks the wind out of him anyway. He’s been walking all this time, back toward the hotel, but he stops now, wheels around as if to confront some invisible assailant. 

“Oh,” he says. “Uh, how long has it been?” 

“Couple months.” 

Chris gets a sudden flash then, back to Tokyo and Zach’s phone on the nightstand. 

“Jesus, a _couple months?_ All this time you’ve been calling me up and--” 

“No, it’s not like that,” Zach says. “It wasn’t--we weren’t exclusive. But we talked about it, and I think we’re going to give it a shot.” His voice is lower, constricted; Chris can tell he’s trying to keep it down, skulking around on the sidewalk in front of some painfully hip little restaurant. He probably wants to hang up really badly. Fuck that. 

“What’s his name?” 

Zach takes a deep breath. “Chris, I really think--” 

“Come on, what’s his name? Why won’t you tell me?” 

“I just--” 

“What, you think I’m going to go look him up or something?” 

“No, of course not, I just--” 

“Then why won’t you tell me who he is?” 

“Look, I met him here, okay. He’s...you don’t know him, Chris, I don’t know why it matters.” 

“I’d tell you about my guy,” Chris says quietly.

“That’s not the same thing.” 

“But it could be.” _If I didn’t live this crazy life, if I could stop thinking about you for a fucking second--_ “It could be, and you know, fuck you, Zach. I don’t know why you think you putting your dick in some guy’s ass is any more legitimate than me doing the same thing with mine.” 

Chris’s heart is pounding. He feels his pulse beating at his throat and his wrists. He’s broken a sweat in the cool night and he wants to run or throw something; he’s so pissed all of a sudden, his angry underground river bubbling up to the surface. He can’t remember ever having been this mad at someone while stuck on the fucking phone. 

Zach’s quiet for a second; despite the distance between them Chris can practically feel his mind racing to parse what Chris has just said, and he fucking hopes he’s making Zach think. Part of him wishes he’d lied, told him that Jeremy fucked Chris’s ass six ways to Sunday on every surface in his house, because Chris gets the feeling these particularities matter to Zach. 

“I’m not going to sit here arguing about this with you when you’re thousands of miles away,” Zach says, his voice tight. “You wanted to spill all about your fucking experiments, you had your chance in Japan. But no, you were too tired, you had to hide in your hotel room and--” 

“Are you kidding me? You really expect me to believe you wanted to go out and listen to me talk about someone else? If anything, you wanted to get drunk enough to go for it and take me back to the hotel and fuck me just so you’d be the one who did it last.” 

“What, like it’s some kind of competition?” Zach actually has the gall to sound surprised at the comparison. 

Angry laughter explodes out of Chris. “Exactly! That’s what it’s been since June, this bizarre game of chicken no one knows the rules to except you. Am I supposed to be turning you down when you call me up at night and...and whisper shit to me? Am I supposed to go fall in love with some girl instead and prove you right? We just don’t know! You’ve been calling the shots from day one, and I let you do it, I even _liked_ it, even though I had no fucking clue what was going on. But you can’t--you can’t just--” 

He waves his free hand ineffectually. He’s edging into dangerous territory, too close to naming that gnawing ache he felt watching Zach and Alice, the one that’s now multiplied a thousandfold when he pictures Zach and his someone. 

Silence. Chris would wonder if Zach was gone except for the fact that he can hear him huffing angrily over the line. 

“I was done with my cigarette like five minutes ago,” Zach says. “I need to go.” 

“Oh, I warrant a smoke break,” Chris says. “Nice to know.” 

“Jesus, what do you want from me right now? I’m out with people and you’re in England. I’ll...I’ll call you tomorrow or something, okay?” 

“Awesome, so you can pretend this conversation never happened. Just like you pretend Berlin wasn’t real, like you pretend none of this shit we’ve done is real.” 

“It’s not,” Zach says, his voice cracking. 

Chris’s throat tightens up at the words, and fuck it, fuck Zach, he is _not_ going to cry. He swallows, hard. “Well, it was to me.”

“I need to go,” Zach repeats thickly. 

_Good,_ Chris thinks. _You fucking cry. Go back to your little table and explain it all to your boyfriend._

“Chris--” 

But Chris can’t listen to any more. He just shoves the phone in his back pocket and lets Zach do what he will. 

Back at the hotel, it’s ironically only the thought of Zach that keeps Chris from passing out in his clothes He’s just so fucking done with tonight, but he somehow can’t imagine Zach denying himself a single creature comfort on Chris’s account. So he drags himself into the shower and soaps himself desultorily with expensive body wash, and then he collapses into bed and sleeps the sleep of the numbly angry. 

In the makeup trailer on Monday, Chris sits and glares at himself in the mirror while a hapless hairstylist attempts to coax his hair into its precipitous Prince Charming coif. The hair makes Chris feel like even more of a douche. Usually he doesn’t mind feeling a little ridiculous in the name of the craft, but today his transformation just makes his already black mood a little stormier. Everyone else can tell; they’re clearly on eggshells, and part of Chris feels bad about it but the larger part can’t bring itself to care. Next to him in makeup, Anna keeps shooting him thinly-veiled looks of concern. Finally, he catches her eye and tries to smile, but he just ends up scaring her back into her magazine while she waits for Kirsty to finish with Chris. When he gets up to leave, she reaches up and grabs his arm. 

“Hey,” she says. “Come by my trailer later and I’ll show you those pictures we talked about. If it’ll make you feel better.” 

Kirsty gives them a look. 

“No, it’s--” Chris stutters. “It’s not like that. They’re pictures of Meryl. Wait, that sounds worse. Ugh, just...never mind.” He winces. Next to him in the makeup chair, Anna turns a fetching shade of fuschia. 

Looking at the pictures does make Chris feel better. Anna also has a lot of alcohol in her trailer, and also is just a really kind and generous person, and also Chris is now very drunk. They watch a couple of bad movies and make up spur-of-the-moment drinking games that are designed to maximize consumption. At the end of the second one, Chris makes no secret of scoffing at the happy screen couple’s romantic resolution and takes a long and exaggerated gulp of his drink. 

“What’s with you, anyway?” Anna asks. “And don’t tell me it’s just the pouffy hair. Although to be fair, that hair would get anyone down.” 

“Ha fucking ha,” Chris says. “No, I haven’t been driven to drink by my hair.” 

“Is it a girl?” Anna asks. “Oh my god, it is, isn’t it. You’re here to ask me for relationship advice, aren’t you? This is actually kind of exciting. Not if it’s Christine, though, because that’s not allowed. I told you before.”

She’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch, and she snatches at one of the couch cushions, tugging it onto her lap and hugging it. She looks way too excited for Chris’s liking. She’s maybe not as drunk as Chris, but if you factor in the difference in size...well, Chris is too drunk for anything even remotely approaching math. She turns to look at him curiously. 

“Kind of,” Chris says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know. Yes. Kind of. And no, Christine was cool, but it’s not--” 

“Also, if this is going to go to any kind of, like, seduction place, you should know up front that I have a boyfriend. Kind of. Why are we saying ‘kind of’ so much?” 

“Because we’re trashed? And no, it’s not--no. Not that you’re not--but no.” 

“O-- _kay_ ,” she says. “So what is it?” 

“Sorry,” Chris says. “It’s nothing, really, it’s just...I had this friend, and we started hooking up, right? And it was great, it was better than great, even. Only they...my friend, I mean. They wanted to stop, and so we did, and ever since then everything’s just been a mess.” 

This right here, Chris thinks ashamedly, is making Zach’s point for him. Because while Chris can’t quite bring himself to fabricate a “she,” he also can’t just tell it like it is. It probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but he can’t picture just coming out and saying it, nonchalantly making it obvious that it’s not a girl at all. And he’s fucking drunk and totally unsubtle at the best of times, and Anna’s drunk too but she’s smart and Chris can see the wheels turning even as he keeps talking. 

Anna nods slowly, like she’s taking it all in. “So this...person. What did they--why’d they want to stop hooking up?” 

“It’s complicated,” Chris says. “But basically, they had feelings. For me. And they didn’t think I reciprocated, or that I even could. So I guess it was some kind of self-preservation thing.” 

Anna sighs. “Well, that’s dumb,” she says.

“What? Why?” Chris obviously concurs, but he’d always figured that that was his wounded pride or something talking, that Zach’s behavior would probably make complete sense to a neutral third party. 

“Because you obviously reciprocate, right? I mean, look at you, Chris. You’re miserable over...this person.” 

“I am?” 

She stares at him. “If this is why you’ve been biting people’s heads off all day and moping around your trailer between takes, then yeah, I’d say you’re pretty miserable. In my inexpert opinion, obviously, since I don’t know you all that well. But I mean, maybe I’m wrong and you’re like this all the time, and your being, like, pleasant to be around has been the exception to the rule.” 

...Which very much might be true, although Chris doesn’t think it is. Anyway, it’s more flattering to accept Anna’s initial explanation, so he’s going to go with that. He’s miserable--because he what, loves Zach? No, that’s not right. He’s miserable because he’s _in love_ with Zach. 

Because he loves Zach back. 

“Fuck,” Chris says, sliding off the couch to sit next to Anna on the floor. 

Anna just looks at him. “What’s the problem? Isn’t this what you both wanted?” 

“He’s with someone else,” Chris says. “He told me the other night.” 

“Oh,” says Anna. “Yeah, that kind of blows.”

Chris picks up his drink again, clinks Anna’s where it’s sitting on the coffee table. “Cheers to that,” he says. 

They’re quiet for a bit, then Anna nudges him with her elbow. “So, you and some mystery guy,” she says

“Yep.” 

She shakes her head at him slowly, then clambers to her feet. “You are intriguing, Chris Pine. Now scoot over, I’ve gotta go pee.” 

When she leaves, Chris scootches down far enough to lean back and rest his head on the seat of the couch. He looks up at the ceiling, which is starting to swim unpleasantly. 

“Fuck,” he says again to the empty room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas in L.A.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this whole thing and then I realized I have no idea if CPine and fam even celebrate Christmas, and then Wikipedia seemed to point to his having Jewish ancestry but considering himself "spiritual" so basically I have no idea. But let's just picture secular holiday celebrations, okay? Okay. ARGH.

Chris has been back in L.A. since right before Thanksgiving. If he’s honest, the last few weeks in England were a blur. All he can remember with any clarity now is his taxi ride to Heathrow. He’s never been so happy to see an airline lounge, and when he sinks into that awful uncomfortable business class seat and breathes deep of the stale recycled air, all he feels is relief. _Get me the fuck off this island,_ he thinks. _No offense._

Chris has always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the holidays, but this year he throws himself in whole hog. He’s got work to do on the sequel to _Horrible Bosses_ , but that just makes it better because he’s not doing the old L.A. sitting-on-the-couch-and-staring-at-his-phone routine. Well, okay, he’s sort of doing that, but at least it’s not because he’s looking for a gig. Working in town is great; he gets to come home at a reasonable hour most nights and cook food and see his friends, and he gets to fucking unpack his shit and sleep in his own bed. He gets to pretend he’s a normal person living a normal life, minus the complicating factor of the paps dogging him and the fact that he goes and screws around in front of a camera for a living. But hell, that’s all normal for this town anyway. 

As part of this fresh spate of normalcy, this fantasy where he’s just some dude with a nine to five, Chris calls Jeremy. He’s not completely sure what to expect, but when he picks up the phone Jeremy seems unreservedly excited to hear from him. Chris catches himself reading between the lines, looking for some hidden doubletalk, some catch. But there’s nothing, just “Oh my god, hey!” and “so tell me all about England” and “I’ll buy you dinner _and_ drinks if you just sit there and talk to me about Meryl” because the mystique of Streep clearly spans the breadth of the human experience. 

“Yeah, okay,” Chris says. “But look, we can split the tab, because it’s just as big a thrill for me to recall my time with Meryl, and I’d feel like a heel if I let you pay.” 

He half expects Jeremy to beg off then, or at least to request a private venue for this little reunion. But he doesn’t. “I’ve been really good with the whole Mexican food thing,” he says. “I’ve lost like five pounds. So you should come be bad with me.”

***

“You sure you’re cool with this?” Chris asks as they pull up in front of the restaurant.

Jeremy shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “I mean, we start gadding about town together every night or whatever, it might get a little tedious. But I’m fine with one night of ‘Chris Pine and mystery man dine in Silverlake; gorge selves on tacos unattractively.’” 

The paps actually give them a break. It’s a Christmas miracle. Also miraculous is the fact that Chris is sitting here having a genuinely decent time for the first time in at least a couple months. He tries to keep his mind off of Zach. He tries valiantly, in fact. But the night’s ease reminds him of Zach just by virtue of contrast. When were they ever this easy? How long ago was it? In Berlin, maybe, early in the evening, Chris eating too much meat and Zach joking about his bubble butt. Sometimes he thinks back to that night and wants to stay there in that restaurant forever, just poised on the cusp of things, perpetually anticipatory and frustrated. Sometimes he thinks it would be worth it. 

The truth is, as good as L.A. is being to Chris right now, he can’t quite shake New York. Zach is a throb, a lacuna, and maybe one day Chris will be able to ease it or fill it up with something more permanent than chips and guac, but today is not that day. 

“Hey,” says Jeremy across the table. “You okay?” 

Chris runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he says. “I was zoning out there for a minute.” 

“Yeah, you looked like you were contemplating the mysteries of the universe. That or you were really regretting getting chicken instead of brisket tacos, which were clearly the superior choice.” 

Chris smiles at that, but he can tell Jeremy can tell there’s not a lot of oomph behind it. He takes a sip of of his Corona. Once, Zach threw a party in the courtyard of his old apartment complex. It was a million years ago, back in the gym days when they weren’t especially close friends and were both still living kind of hand-to-mouth, and all he bought were these freaking Coronas. Or, no, Coronitas, the mini ones that everybody hated, not enough bang for the buck. But Zach had an assload of them, insisted on shoving fat quartered limes down the necks of the bottles. Chris remembers drinking about thirty-seven, sucking on the glass neck in an effort to get some liquid past the wadded citrus, halfway terrified it was going to snap off in his mouth. He remembers Zach catching his eye and laughing and laughing. 

Chris sets the beer down over the tidemarked circle on his cocktail napkin and picks up another chip. When in doubt, food. 

After dinner, they go back to Chris’s place. When they pull into the driveway Chris is seized with indecision, but then Jeremy kind of looks away and bites his lip and Chris wants to kiss him, badly. 

“Do you want to come in?” 

Jeremy grins, slow and a little bit cocky, and it just gets Chris hotter. 

They go into the kitchen. Chris gets them another round of beers, which are destined to languish on the counter, slowly warming. He backs Jeremy into the living room right away, hands on his waist, sliding up under his shirt. Chris is making for the couch when Jeremy hums into his mouth and Chris redirects them into the bedroom accordingly. 

“That what you meant?” he asks when they get there, thanking his lucky stars that his housekeeper came today and that he hasn’t been in here long enough to fuck things up since she left. 

“Yeah, I figured maybe we should just cut to the chase.” 

Chris snorts. “You don’t mince words, do you?” 

“You just wanna go hold hands on the couch? Because that’s cool too.” 

“Um, no, this is...this is more than fine.” Chris yanks his shirt off over his head and drops it next to the bed, to which Jeremy says nothing. Whether they’re still in that polite flush of early acquaintance or he’s just not anal-retentive about clutter, Chris isn’t sure and should probably stop dwelling on. 

He crawls onto the bed and slides his hand up under Jeremy’s shirt again, running his index finger under the waistband of his jeans. It’s strange, Chris thinks, that at this point he remembers Jeremy’s body better than he does Zach’s. He can recall flashes, the stash of images he can’t help but trot out from time to time when he jacks off, always against his better judgement. But alone in the shower or in bed at night they swim up into the forefront of his brain, and Chris is just as powerless to stop his nigh-autonomic response to them as he was to refuse Zach’s phone calls. 

But at this point it’s more pastiche than genuine memory, a set of impressions--the curve of an arm, always sturdier than Chris remembers. Hair, of course, everywhere and always wild, and a playful darkness to his eyes that makes Chris have to close his own for a second to get over it. A bite, a particular kind of touch. 

Jeremy’s different, obviously. Smoother around the edges, both physically and otherwise. There’s a calm to him, and if Chris is being honest he recognizes its equivalent neither in Zach nor in himself. It’s simultaneously attractive and a bit boring, but that doesn’t really matter now. Jeremy looks nothing like Zach, but he’s objectively just as hot, and now he’s letting Chris help him out of his shirt and lifting his hips to drag his jeans off. He kicks them away off the end of the bed and Chris feels a pointless little stab of validation. 

He groans resonantly as Chris swallows his dick; Chris has a hand resting on his diaphragm and can feel the hum. He closes his eyes and tries to let his jaw relax, tries to let Jeremy in deeper, but he doesn’t try to go, just fucks politely up into Chris’s mouth. Which is fine, and it’s nice not to gag. 

“Would you...” Chris says later, lips swollen and voice hoarse. “Would you fuck me?” 

Jeremy blinks at him, eyes a little unfocused. “Okay,” he says, and Chris smiles. 

He wants it. He’s wanted it for awhile now. Mostly he wants to see what it’s like with someone else, which he doesn’t even feel bad about admitting. Because the sense-memories he sees when he touches himself aren’t just visions; they’re the ghosts of feelings, and he thinks that filling up what this whole thing with Zach has excavated within him might call for another kind of filling altogether. 

“Wasn’t sure you were into this,” Jeremy says as he rolls the condom on. 

“What? Oh, yeah,” Chris says. “I kind of am.” 

“How many--” Jeremy shakes his head. “Never mind. Not the best conversation to have right now, huh?” 

He says this quietly, as if to himself, and Chris takes the opportunity to pretend not to hear. Jeremy leans in and kisses Chris on the mouth again. They’ve spent the last several minutes kissing, Jeremy’s fingers crooked inside of Chris, and and now Jeremy is lining himself up and nudging at Chris’s hole. The fingers have succeeded in producing both a massive anticipatory boner and the panicky, wrong feeling Chris remembers from the last time he did this. The combination is disconcerting, but Chris is trying to ignore it. 

“Here, move your legs up a little,” Jeremy says, watching Chris’s body. 

As he presses inside Chris screws his eyes closed. “Ah,” he gasps. “Fuck.” 

“You good?” 

“Um...wait a sec, can you just--fuck, it kinda burns.” 

“Sorry. You want me to--” 

“Just hold on.” 

Chris keeps his eyes shut and pants a little. Usually the discomfort’s not such a big deal, and it’s offset by enough pleasure to help Chris past it, but now there seems to be no way around the fact that Jeremy is trying to fit a large blunt object into an orifice not technically designed for that purpose. Which you’d think Chris would have come to terms with by this point, but he clearly hasn’t.

“Maybe if you just put it in,” Chris says. 

“Are you sure?” Jeremy’s breathing is uneven; Chris wonders if he’s making it feel different for Jeremy somehow. “Here,” Jeremy says, squeezing some more lube at the juncture of their bodies and spreading it around with his fingers. “This’ll help.” 

“I haven’t done this in awhile,” Chris offers abashedly. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Jeremy leans down and kisses Chris on the knee. Then he pushes inside. 

“Fuck,” Chris says. “Ow. Yeah, no, that’s--take it out, okay?” 

“Give it a minute.” 

“I don’t think I can,” Chris says. 

Jeremy tries and fails to conceal a disappointed noise, but he begins to slide out. It’s not happening fast enough, though, and Chris is suddenly overcome with a sense of panic, like if Jeremy’s dick doesn’t exit his ass right fucking now something really, really bad is going to happen. 

“Dude, take it out!” Chris is fully aware that he sounds ridiculous, voice all high and squeaky, but he can’t be bothered to care. 

“I’m trying,” Jeremy says, voice infuriatingly calm. “You’ve got to relax; you’re not letting me.” 

“Yes I am,” Chris says petulantly. 

“Just breathe,” Jeremy says, and as Chris attempts to do so he can feel Jeremy sliding out of him little by little until his ass is mercifully empty again. Chris fumbles for the pillow and pulls it over his face. He feels rather than sees Jeremy flop next to him. 

“Yeah, so, I’m not really allowed to let you smother yourself,” Jeremy says. “The state medical board kind of frowns on that.” He plucks at the corner of Chris’s pillow and lifts it gently, letting in a crack of lamplight. “You in there?” 

“Nope,” Chris says. “Nobody home.” 

Jeremy lets the pillow drop and settles back against the headboard. 

“I mean, it’s an occupational hazard,” he says. “Butts are fickle creatures.” 

“Not mine,” Chris says from under the pillow. “It knows what it wants.” 

“Well, sounds like you were out of practice. Chris, come out from under there, will you? It’s really not that big of a deal.” 

Chris flings the pillow off of the bed and groans. “Says the guy who didn’t just have some kind of ass crisis.” 

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. Look, it happens, okay? It happens to the best of us.” 

“Mmmph.” 

“Seriously.” 

Chris sighs. “I’ve, uh, only done that with one other person,” he says. “I think maybe he put the whammy on me.” 

“I’d take that as a challenge, but something tells me that’s not how you want to play it.” 

“I don’t know. It’s all messed up. We were friends, first. Now I don’t know what we are. Maybe it’s like you and your roommate.” He shakes his head. He probably shouldn’t even be talking about this, but he’s not sure he can stop.

“Maybe,” Jeremy says. “I kinda hope not, for your sake. Besides, we weren’t really friends. We just kind of jumped into it, and then down the line it turned out we didn’t really know each other at all. So when things got shitty, there was no _there_ there. If you know what I mean.” 

Chris rubs a hand over his face. They’re not the same, him and Zach. They knew each other, didn’t they? Something about Jeremy’s words is resonating, though, like they’re striking someplace deep inside Chris. He’s too scattered right now to try and figure it out. He rests his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. 

“Thanks,” he says. “For being cool about...you know.” 

“Like I said, it happens. It’s already forgotten.” 

Chris glances in the direction of Jeremy’s groin. His own hard-on has long since given up the ghost, and he guesses being told to get your dick out of someone’s ass is probably a bit of a mood killer. “You want to give it another shot?” 

Jeremy sits up, resting his head in his hands, letting them fall away so he can turn to look at Chris. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m afraid the moment may have passed.” 

“Yeah, you might be right.” 

Chris must look a little crestfallen, because Jeremy catches him by the wrist and kisses his cheek. “Hey, don’t worry,” he says. “I’m really freaking tired, too. So it’s not just this, but I, uh, I think I’m going to head out.” 

Chris shrugs, sliding off the bed to locate a pair of boxers. “Okay,” he says. Thinking about Zach is getting him down, and he’s simultaneously relieved that Jeremy’s going and bummed that he’s going to be left alone with it. 

They dress, and Chris walks him out. At the door, they hug. “You sure you’re good?” Jeremy asks, pulling back and holding Chris by the shoulders like he’s trying to get a good look at him. “I can stay for awhile if you want.” 

Chris isn’t sure when he became not-good, but he apparently has. “Yeah, no,” he says. “I’m fine. Go ahead; I bet you’re pretty beat.” 

Jeremy studies his face for a few seconds, then nods. “Okay. I’m taking your word for it.” He smiles, maybe a little sadly. “Goodnight, Chris. And hey, merry Christmas if I don’t see you.” 

“You too,” Chris says, because he probably won’t. “You too.” 

After Jeremy’s gone, Chris goes into the kitchen and stares abjectly into the fridge for awhile. Nothing is appealing. He turns his attention to the wasted beers on the counter, and sips from one of the bottles as he pours the other down the sink.

***

A couple days later, Chris has plans to meet Katie. They’re tackling Christmas gifts for their parents first, and then getting food. In theory, at least.

“I mean, what’s better?” Katie asks. “Eating first to get you through the shopping part, or dangling dinner in front of you like a carrot?” 

Chris bites his lip in contemplation. “Definitely the carrot,” he says. “I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this otherwise.” 

She snorts, taking a sip of her coffee. “You’re such a baby,” she says. 

“Well, look at you, you’re the one self-medicating with caffeine at five in the afternoon.” 

“Hey, I’ve been up since six this morning.” 

“And I had an early-ass call today. Cry me a river.” 

“Oh my god,” she says. “Fine. Since you’re such a grown-up, you can buy me dinner.” Chris sticks his tongue out at her.

They end up in Williams-Sonoma, Chris spending way too long hovering over this insane stove that he’s been secretly coveting for awhile. It’s yellow, and it has these huge knobs that Chris just wants to fiddle with. While laughing at his own middle school-level jokes, obviously. 

“Get away from that,” Katie says. “It doesn’t go with your house at all. You need some kind of, like, ski chateau in Aspen to pull that thing off.” 

“I could get into skiing,” Chris says. 

Katie’s look says it all, and Chris backs slowly away from the stove and goes in search of some Le Creuset pot his mother wants to help round out her collection.

“This is kind of lame,” Chris says, holding up an obscure piece of kitchenware that costs $200. “I mean, we’re getting her a--what the hell even is this?” He peers at the barcode stuck to the underside of the ceramic. “Ah, here we go; we’re getting her a tarte tatin pan for Christmas. How personal and heartwarming.” 

“She made me a list, okay? How much more personal do you need? Now take that to the counter and get them to hold it. I’m going to go over there and see what they’ve got in terms of chutney.” 

_Chutney?_ Chris thinks. But his mom always has loved random preserves. She got really into canning once; it had been great until she’d branched out from strawberries and raspberries and started pickling anything that could conceivably be pickled. It was truly a dark time, and he thinks there are still some remnants in the pantry at his parents’ place. Jarred goods from Williams-Sonoma are a much safer prospect. He hopes they have that sea-salt chocolate sauce again this year. 

On his way from the counter to Katie, he gets waylaid by a sample table where a chipper young sales associate is offering up handcrafted marshmallows, and that is obviously a thing that is happening. Chris takes two. He’ll decide whether or not Katie gets one by the time he gets over to the wall of chutney, but in the meantime he shoves the first one in his mouth.

So it figures that he turns away from the marshmallow table and runs smack into Joe fucking Quinto, and that his shocked “Hey!” comes out sounding like the beginning of a game of Fluffy Bunny. 

“What’s up, Pine?” Joe claps him on the shoulder, grinning like someone who definitely doesn’t know that Chris now has a whole reel of distinctly messy backstory with Joe’s younger brother. 

Chris hastily swallows his marshmallow (he is definitely not giving the second one to Katie) and grins back at Joe. He feels like his insides have just flash-frozen. 

“Not much, man,” he says. “Just doing some Christmas shopping. You know how it is. Katie’s around here somewhere; we’re trying to get the parents knocked out early.” 

“Yeah, I’m here in search of something for my mother-in-law,” Joe says. “Some special knife that honestly sounds pretty frightening. So, hey, it’s been awhile; I haven’t seen you since--” 

“Since the premiere,” Chris supplies. “That afterparty.” Zach, in another ravishing fucking suit, had perched like a vampire bat in the corner of the room and watched Chris hungrily the whole night. That was on their first ill-fated break, and only way Chris had survived the bone-deep impulse to let Zach pounce and fuck his brains out had been to surgically attach himself to Zoe and her fiance to the point they actually thought he might’ve been trying to initiate a threesome. It had been awkward. There had been a conversation. They’d all been very drunk, which was the night’s only saving grace, and they’ll laugh about it one day. Maybe.

“Exactly, that was like a million years ago,” Joe says. “Sucks that Zach’s back east; I never get to just run into any of you guys any more.” 

Chris swallows. “Yeah, that does suck,” he says carefully. “So, uh, do you know what he’s doing for the holidays?” Chris, no. Chris, why. 

He must sound strange, because a curious look crosses Joe’s face for a second. But then it’s gone just as quickly, so maybe Chris is seeing things. _Fuck,_ he thinks. _The whammy is right, and not just on my ass, either._

“He’s staying in the city,” Joe says. “I think he gets the day off from the play and that’s about it. Hey, have you gotten a chance to see it yet? Fucking amazing, right?” 

“I haven’t, actually,” Chris says. 

He thinks back to his poor dogeared calendar, to the little red dot that marks a date in February Chris has been feeling running up on him like hourglass sand, even more so since their fight. When is a play just a play? When does it stop being just like every other project of theirs that the other doesn’t see for whatever reason? It feels different somehow. He’d be willing to bet it feels different for Zach too, or did at least. 

“Well, you should go if you get a chance,” Joe says. Then, quieter, like it’s an afterthought: “He’d appreciate it. He, uh, he cares what you think of this stuff.” 

The words catch Chris in the throat, and he’s hit with a split second of pure terror wherein he’s certain Joe knows, knows everything and is trying to pass along some kind of subtle communique. But Joe’s always been a pretty straightforward kind of guy, more likely to drag Chris against a wall somewhere and tell him to stay the fuck away from his brother. That he doesn’t, Chris supposes, is comforting, and also probably proof that what Joe let slip a moment ago about Zach valuing Chris’s opinion is...nothing. Just carryover from before. And that Joe has no clue what’s transpired between them since that night after the premiere. He should be relieved, but he isn’t. Not really. 

Across the store, Katie is waving a jar at him. Chris meets her eye, and Joe half turns to see where he’s looking, raises a hand in greeting. 

“Looks like your sister has something she wants you to look at,” Joe says. 

“Oh, yeah,” says Chris. “My mom is really into chutney.” 

Joe gives him a questioning, furrowed-brow look that reminds Chris so much of Zach it’s almost physically painful. 

“Forget it,” Chris mutters. “Anyway, I should probably get back to it. Good to see you.” He goes in for a side hug. Joe’s got an armful of shopping bags on his other arm, so it’s not awkward that Chris doesn’t opt for the full body. Joe agrees (“Good to see you too, Pine,”) and wishes Chris a happy holiday. As Joe turns to go, the words are there on Chris’s tongue. He can taste them. But he holds them there in his mouth like stones, and then Joe steps into the crowd and is gone. 

_Tell Zach I said hi,_ Chris thinks. 

He ends up giving Katie the marshmallow after all.

***

After they bushwack their way to the register and pay for the assorted cookware and jarred randomness they’ve selected, Chris declares a state of blood sugar emergency. There’s an Italian place nearby that they both like, so they opt for that. He’s still pretty much in shock from his Quinto sighting, so he numbly orders a glass of Chianti and an appetizer (calamari fritti) and sits there shoveling mini-squid into his mouth while Katie stares at him across the table, sipping her wine with eyes narrowed.

“What?” Chris says finally, around a mouthful of tentacles. 

“Are you planning on telling me why you look like you’ve seen a ghost? And why that look seems to have coincided with running into Zach’s brother?” 

“I...wasn’t, no.” 

Katie shrugs. “Okay,” she says. “That’s fine. I was just wondering if there was anything you might want to talk about. But if not, that’s cool.” 

“Nope. Nothing to report.” 

“Okay,” Katie says again, her tone implying what they both know, i.e. that Chris is full of shit. 

But the hell of it--and she totally did this on purpose, fucking Katie--is that now he really can’t stop thinking about Zach. They order their entrees, lasagna for Chris and some chicken thing for her, and they mostly eat in silence, which is generally cool because they’re siblings and they can do that kind of thing. But now the air’s all thunderstormy, and Katie keeps looking at him and it’s driving Chris fucking crazy. 

_“What?”_

She shakes her head. “Nothing, quit being a psycho. Are you getting dessert? This place has really good tiramisu, I think.” 

“Of course I’m getting dessert,” Chris hisses. Because he clearly needs more food to stuff in his face. It keeps the words in. 

That lasagna was really rich, though, so Chris only makes it halfway through his tiramisu. He gives the accompanying coffee up for lost. Maybe he can get a to-go cup. 

“So--” Katie begins. 

“We had a big fight, okay?” 

“I...was just going to ask if you were up for round two of presents before we call it a night,” she says. “But, hey, by all means.” 

“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” he says. “But, yeah, we had a fight. Zach and I. That’s why it was weird that I ran into Joe; I didn’t know if Zach told him about it or if it’d be awkward or anything.” 

“So was it? Awkward?” 

“I mean, I don’t think Zach said anything to him, but yeah, a little bit. It was probably just me, though.” 

She spoons up a bite of tiramisu. “So what was your fight about? You two are like peas in a pod when you’re together; what could you possibly argue over that’d make it that uncomfortable for you to see Joe?” 

Chris takes a deep breath. _Are we really doing this?_ says a voice in his head. He swallows. He can see the wheels turning behind Katie’s eyes, like she knows already. 

“Wanna take a guess?” he says. 

She’s quiet for a second. She raises an eyebrow at him. “You and Zach?” 

Chris can’t look at her. He’s blushing like a beet, he can feel it. Thank god the lights are low. “Uh, yeah,” he says, his mouth dry. He licks his lips. “Did I just blow your mind?” 

“How would you like me to respond to that?” she asks carefully, in what he guesses is the same tone she uses with patients. 

“I don’t know,” he says, smiling. 

She smiles back at him, shakes her head incredulously. But it’s a sad smile; his is too. He finds himself wanting badly to be telling her under different circumstances, Zach waiting in the wings somehow, Chris’s smile broad and proud. 

“You and Zach,” Katie says again. “But...not so much anymore?” 

“Not so much. Hence the fight. Although it’s not like we were really together in the first place, so--” 

“So what do you plan to do about it? It’s not like you’re never going to speak to him again, right?” 

“Shit, I don’t know, Katie, he’s got some boyfriend now. And he made it pretty clear that whatever happened between us didn’t mean a whole lot.” 

She wrinkles her nose. “That doesn’t sound like the Zach I know.” 

“Well, unless he’s been taken over by some alien force, that’s what he said.” 

“Are you sure that’s how he actually feels about it?” She’s looking at him like he’s a small and not especially astute child. It’s infuriating. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

She chases a swirl of chocolate sauce around the rim of the plate with her index finger. “People say all kinds of things when they’re scared, Chris.” 

“Whether or not he meant it, he said it. And it didn’t exactly make me feel great, so I haven’t been in a huge hurry to chase him down and talk about his fears or whatever.” 

“Fair enough,” Katie says, raising her hands deferentially. 

But Chris feels like he’s on a roll now; he hasn’t really been able to talk about this to anyone since Anna, and he’d been trying to keep it in check then. “I mean, fuck, he was the one who said he wanted to stop what we were doing, and then he’d like, call me and say all these things, and it was just fucking confusing, you know? And then he has the nerve to tell me he’s seeing someone else, and I’m...I’m just fucking done. I’m _done_. And--wait, why are you _laughing_?” 

Katie covers her mouth with a hand. “I’m not,” she says, even though she totally is. “I swear. It’s just...I don’t think I’ve seen you get this worked up over something before. Or someone, I should say.” 

“It’s not _my_ fault,” Chris says. “He’s the one being a fucking pussy about it. Uh, sorry.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll forgive you,” she says. “You’re clearly not in your right mind.”

“Ugh,” Chris says. He wonders if it’s too late to get another glass of wine, but they’ve already gotten the check. “Whatever, Katie.” 

“Whatever,” she mimics. “Seriously though, if you’re done, you’re done, I guess. But it takes two to tango, buddy, and it takes two people to have a phone conversation, so just keep in mind that Zach didn’t exactly draw this out all by himself. Did you ever even talk about it before things blew up?” 

“Not really,” Chris admits. “Once, kind of. That’s when he told me he wanted to stop hooking up. But things weren’t exactly back to normal after that, so I’m not sure what it accomplished.” 

“I don’t know,” Katie says. “I think most conversations accomplish something. But like I said, if you’re done, you’re done. Just means you need to stop picking up next time he calls.” 

“He’s not calling again,” Chris says. 

“Okay,” says Katie. “Okay.” 

She supervises the purchase of a cashmere sweater for their father before Chris begs off for the evening, claiming tiredness. In truth, though, he’s not tired, not really. He feels antsy, like he wants to shrug out of his own skin. Exposed, maybe, because of what he told Katie, even though he’s pretty sure it’s not that big of a deal. Not like she’d seemed especially surprised, anyway. 

He’s still full from dinner, still a little loopy from the wine, but he puts on a t-shirt and shorts anyway, slips on his running shoes at the door and steps out into the cool night. He cranks up the music on his iPod and takes off, running up the hill at a slightly slower pace than he usually manages, ignoring the immediate stitch in his side, the faint swirl of nausea. He runs until his stomach protests too loudly, then he slows to a walk, hands on his hips and head spinning. He’s sweating despite the chill in the air. He peers through the squat trees on the scrubby canyonside to see the lights blanketing the city, orange and white and red, isolated clumps of Christmas decorations coalescing into pinky-green blobs. 

_Kind of romantic._

He turns and starts to walk back home. When he gets to the crest of the hill he runs again, lets his legs wheel and carry him down at the whim of gravity. In the dark, it’s easy to forget where his body ends and the night begins, the swirl of air and music in his ears, the dependable pump of his heart. 

It’s December 20th, and Chris hasn’t decorated his own house at all. When he gets home he goes into the garage and hauls out the boxes of lights, pulling out tangled wads of green cord, because he’s an idiot and never puts them back in an orderly fashion. By the time he’s got them straightened out he’s almost over it, but he perseveres, draping them haphazardly--the best way--over the bushes out front and winding them halfway up the avocado tree, as far up as he can get without a ladder. 

He plugs them in. They’re old, and the color’s starting to wear off the surface of the bulbs, lending them a washed-out quality that Chris thinks is kind of nice anyway. He flops onto the driveway to stare, letting his eyes relax and slide out of focus, letting the lights blur together into a watery mess of color. 

He goes in when the sweat starts to dry, when he starts to chill. He runs the shower as hot as he can get it and gets in, washes up, rubs a soapy hand over his gut in apology. He feels like he could puke if he tried. He wonders if it would make him feel better. 

Probably not.

***

Chris’s parents have had a party on Christmas Eve since before he was born. He doesn’t always make it these days, but he goes if he’s in town, out of a sense of nostalgia and the Christmas spirit and also free cookies. Lots and lots of cookies, because it’s a cookie party. His mom is super into holiday baking, and apparently she figured out pretty early on that the best way to dispose of the fruits of her labors is to invite a bunch of people over to eat them. Old friends and new, neighbors, relatives--they all come, and if they don’t bring cookies of their own they bring booze. Sometimes they bring both. It’s a pretty sweet party, and afterwards Chris generally doesn’t want to eat another cookie until May at the earliest.

He hasn’t talked to Katie since their heart-to-heart over dinner, but when she sees him she gives him her usual bone-crushing hug and doesn’t look at him pityingly or anything, so he figures things are business as usual between them. Anyway, Chris feels better. He’s had the past few days off from the movie, so he’s been doing a lot of alternating between therapeutic lounging and exercise in an attempt to preempt the cookie onslaught. His parents tend to outdo themselves on Christmas Day, too, so it’s probably a good idea to get a leg up. 

He’s made a full circuit of the living room, answered an interview’s worth of questions about his life from his parents’ friends, and is about to hit up the dining room for another round of cookies when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

He sets his plate down on the mantle and gets it out. It buzzes again insistently. He’s got a text, and it’s from Zach. 

_Shit,_ Chris thinks, his stomach dropping. He shoves the final cookie into his mouth before he reads the message. It’s a chocolate thumbprint, and it’s fucking delicious. 

_Merry Christmas_ , the text says. Then, _Can we talk?_

Chris swallows the cookie, then takes a sip of his beer. He feels hot all of a sudden, like he’s wearing too much clothing. He tugs at his collar with a fingertip. The noise of the party rises around him like a wall. He needs...he needs to get out of here, find somewhere he can think. He brushes past Katie on the way out of the living room. She opens her mouth to say something, but he doesn’t wait to see what it is. He barricades himself in the downstairs bathroom. Maybe he should’ve chosen a more out-of-the-way location, but he’s not exactly thinking clearly right now. 

He takes a piss first, trying to ignore the way his heart feels like it’s speeding up. He washes his hands and leans against the bathroom door, takes another gulp of beer. 

_Okay, Pine,_ he thinks. _Just slow it down._

_Can we talk?_

“I don’t know,” Chris mutters out loud. “Can we?” 

It’s not like Zach to ask. Usually he’d just call, just assume Chris was ready to pick up the phone and...and talk it up about whatever. But that was then, and this is now, and given the way their last conversation ended Chris has no idea what Zach could possibly want to talk about. He also has no idea how to reply to the message. Because yeah, of course Chris wants to talk to Zach. He wants it with every fiber of his being, and he’s apparently done the world’s shittiest job of getting over it in the six weeks or so since the last time they talked. 

He hears a scuffling sound outside the door. “Dude, what are you doing in there?” 

Chris silently curses Katie for assuming they have the type of sibling relationship that allows her to come hunt him down in the bathroom in the middle of a Christmas party. Christmas Eve party. Whatever. 

“Can’t a guy get a little privacy?” 

“You’ve been in there for like 20 minutes, and don’t think I didn’t see you bring your phone.” She gets quiet, and for a second he thinks she’s gone away. Then, “Christopher Whitelaw Pine, is this what I think it is? Are you texting him?” 

He winces. You tell your sister one fucking thing, Jesus Christ. 

“What happened to not wanting me to never talk to him again?” 

“You said you were done,” she says. “So if that’s what you want, then be done.” 

She pounds on the door. It comes out softly, like she’s doing it with the flat of her hand. “Get out here,” she says. “And don’t fucking text him!” 

Chris glares at the closed door, glares at his phone. It’s ten o’clock in New York. 

“He texted me first,” he says, too quietly for Katie to hear. 

Chris emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, finding himself bereft of his previously festive mood. He sneaks into the kitchen for a plastic bag and steals some of the thumbprint cookies for later. He finds his dad over by the brownie tray and begs off, claiming too much sugar and a desire to not be totally useless tomorrow.

His dad’s the least likely to grill Chris about his thoughts and feelings. True to form, he just claps Chris on the shoulder and reminds him that they’re eating at two tomorrow afternoon. 

Chris drives home, head spinning. He’s not an especially petty person, but he has to admit that his first impulse is to delete the text and do nothing, say nothing, let Zach stew. For a week, for a month, forever--Chris doesn’t know and attempts mightily to convince himself that he doesn’t care. It’s bullshit, though. And besides, everything personal aside, Chris is a professional. In a year or less they’ll be together for fourteen hours a day again. At the absolute least, he owes it to everyone else to make things bearable, if not precisely _right_. 

When he gets home, he sits on the couch and stares at his phone for a very long time. The couch seems like the wrong place to have this conversation, though, based on its history. Phones, the couch, Chris and Zach--it’s a volatile combination. So he gets up and moves, to the desk first, then to the bedroom. Ultimately, he settles on the kitchen. He pours himself a glass of water--he wants a beer, but he feels like water is the healthy and mature alternative--and sits on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, where he imagined, when he bought this house, he’d host dinner guests (girls, always girls in his mind’s eye) who would hang out and drink wine and make scintillating conversation while Chris cooked. 

Except that’s never actually happened, and now here he is agonizing over placing a phone call to a dude he’s pretty sure he’s in love with. This is not how things were supposed to go, but the washed-out Christmas lights are glowing through the kitchen windows and the universe could not give less of a fuck what Chris imagined his life was supposed to be. 

He sighs. He gulps down half the glass of water, presses “send,” and closes his eyes. 

The phone rings twice before Zach picks up. “Hello?” Chris thinks he sounds hopeful. The undercurrent of anger surges up through him like electricity. 

“What?” Chris says. 

“Chris?” 

“What?” he says again. “What’s so important you just have to talk to me on Christmas fucking Eve?” 

“Oh,” Zach says. He sounds taken aback. “You didn’t have to call me back right away,” he says. 

“Whatever,” Chris says. 

“How are you?” Zach says. 

Chris sighs. “Okay, I guess. Look, spit it out, will you? I’m fucking tired.”  
And he is. Not just physically, either. But there’s something about the obvious trepidation in Zach’s tone, the foreignness of it, that’s threatening to poke holes in Chris’s bluster. 

“I’m sorry,” Zach says. “I wanted to tell you that. I made a huge mistake that night; I shouldn’t have told you that way, I should’ve...well, I don’t really know, but I shouldn’t have done it like that.” 

“No,” Chris says. “You shouldn’t have. And seriously, Zach, where the hell do you get off? You realize that this is still you calling the shots, right? I’m not supposed to do shit until you give me permission. And why now, anyway? What happened to your boyfriend?” 

Zach sighs. “We’re over. Chris--” 

“Oh, great. So that’s why you’re calling. Nice to know you--” 

“Will you just let me talk? I know I fucked up. I know I was a dick, okay? So, yeah, we broke up. But we broke up because of you.” 

“Seriously, dude? It’s not my fault that you can’t hack it in relationships.” It’s mean, but Chris can’t help it. He’s pissed, and if he’s honest this conversation is shaking him more than he thought it would. 

“Maybe I’m not making myself clear,” Zach says. “We broke up because he’s not you.” 

“Oh.” 

Zach laughs mirthlessly. “Yeah. Wasn’t exactly conducive to keeping things going.” He sighs again. “Look, Chris, can we...is there any way we can talk in person? I’d come out there, but I’ve got the play, and...and I know it’s a lot to ask, it’s way too much to ask, and I’d pay for your ticket--” 

“Shut up,” Chris says. “I don’t need you to buy me a plane ticket.” 

“Will you come out here? Come for New Years. I’ve got to work but then I swear, I’ll take you out and it’ll be fun and...I just want to see you in person and fucking talk to you without hundreds of miles of distance.” 

Chris bites his lip. He thinks about Katie. _If you’re done, be done._ But then he things about everything else she said, about running into Joe and about her shock at the prospect of their never talking again. 

_People say all kinds of things when they’re scared._

Well, Chris is fucking terrified. And he knows he could drive the last nail into the coffin right now if he wanted to. He could burn it all down. But if he thinks about it...hell, he doesn’t even have to think that hard. Because despite the last six months, despite everything, there’s nothing Chris wants to do more than to see Zach. There’s a smile fighting for the corners of his mouth even now, even as angry as he was just five minutes ago. 

_I’m an idiot. I am such an idiot._

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Okay. I’ll come.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve in New York

Chris doesn’t tell anyone about New York. The movie wraps the week after Christmas, anyway, so he’s not really beholden to anybody work-wise. So it’s fine, he decides. He’s an adult, right? He doesn’t feel like talking to Katie about it. He doesn’t even tell Zach. Not the particulars, just that he’s coming. The laxness of their plans troubles Chris, what with his history of dutifully crossed Ts and dotted Is. He tries to stifle the unease. How are you supposed to be all careless with someone’s heart if you’re worried that you’re not giving them enough time to put out the guest towels? But Chris has been working against type right from the beginning here, so he decides to just go with it. 

He gets in early on New Year’s Eve and gets a car into the city on his own, only bothering to call Zach when he’s clasping a hot cup of coffee at a place reasonably equidistant to Zach’s apartment and Chris’s hotel. Chris could be accused of being a romantic, but he’s also still mostly angry at Zach. He’s not stupid, either, and if everything else goes to shit he’s at least getting a well-appointed night’s sleep out of the deal. 

He takes a sip of his cortado and scrolls through his contacts. 

“I’m here,” he says when Zach picks up. Try as he might, Chris can’t stop the happy storm of nerves that hits as soon as he hears Zach’s voice.

“You are? Really? I wasn’t totally sure--but okay, cool. You’re...where are you? Do you want to come over?” 

“Um, sure,” Chris says. “I’m getting coffee. Do you want me to bring you a latte or something?” 

“Thanks,” says Zach, a little hesitantly. “Double almond milk? I’m trying to cut back on soy.”

***

Bringing coffee was inspired, Chris thinks when he gets to Zach’s place. Because it’s a prop, isn’t it? Something to juggle in the hall as he knocks, to pass to Zach as soon as he opens the door, so that for a blessed though admittedly short interval Zach’s dealing with his latte--the first sip, the _that’s really good, thank you_ \--instead of with Chris. It’s nothing, in the grand scheme of things, but in this moment it gives Chris the chance to hang back a little, to take a breath.

The dogs help too; they try and burst around Zach and out into the hall, Chris trying his level best to act as a human barricade. 

“Get in,” he says affectionately. “What, you’re just going to take to the streets or something?” He kneels and gives them their due, scratching under Noah’s chin as he huffs happily. 

Zach swallows his mouthful of coffee. He fumbles with the lid, takes it off and blows on the brimming surface of the liquid. 

“They can’t really foam it,” he says, wrinkling his nose. 

Chris gets to his feet. “It’s fucking almond milk, what do you expect?” 

Zach looks at Chris then, as if for the first time, and in spite of himself Chris looks back. He thought the coffee might give him enough time to get a solid grip on his anger, to keep hold of it somehow, because he felt like he needed it. Now that he’s standing here in front of Zach, though, he can feel it seeping away to nothing. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad. 

“Hi,” Zach says, almost shyly. 

“Hey.” Chris wants to smile, so he takes a sip of his own mostly-empty coffee. 

“I’m glad you came.” 

“I...I am too,” Chris says. 

“Are you, though? Really? You’ve seemed...less than happy to be dealing with me lately.” 

“I am. You were right the other day. If we were going to talk about it, it needed to be in person. The phone wasn’t doing us any favors.” 

Zach makes a face. “No, it wasn’t, was it.” He sets his coffee down on the side table, shoves his hands in his pockets. “So are we talking, or what?” 

“I don’t know,” Chris says. “Seems kind of abrupt.” 

“What, like fucking the same night we kissed for the first time? You mean like that?” 

Chris does smile this time, doesn’t even bother to hide it. “Now that you mention it.” 

He goes into the kitchen and throws his empty cup in the trash. Zach’s kitchen looks exactly the same as it did last time Chris was here, with the minor addition of a small potted cactus sitting in the corner of the counter. Chris regards it with suspicion. 

A telltale prickle courses the length of his spine, and when he turns back around Zach’s right there. He looks good, Chris thinks. Something deep down in his limbic system lights up at the sight of Zach, the way the air seems to shimmer like hot asphalt with the current of their proximity. Yeah, he looks good. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, dark grey, and a dark pair of jeans. His feet, curling against the hardwoods, are sock-clad. And he’s really close, and Chris wants to touch him. He leans in and catches Zach around the waist, pulls their bodies together. They haven’t touched since the end of July, haven’t touched like this, with _intent_ , since a month before that. 

Chris drags his thumb along Zach’s jawline. Zach watches Chris’s mouth. 

Chris exhales, “I really want to--” 

Zach nods, almost imperceptibly. Then he leans forward, and Chris leans forward, and they’re so close to kissing. Chris cups Zach’s cheek in one hand; the other clutches at the waistband of his jeans, a finger hooking into Zach’s belt loop. Zach’s got a fistful of Chris’s sweater, and it would be good. It would be so good, the sharp way Zach kisses, the sharp way Chris has missed it. Then Zach’s fist flattens against Chris’s chest, and he backs up about half an inch. He pokes Chris softly in the middle of his solar plexus, drumming his finger lightly against the pale cream wool. 

“Wait,” he says. His breath smells like coffee. “Maybe...” Zach sighs and lets his head fall onto Chris’s shoulder, and they stay like that, breathing quietly, for long minutes. 

“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” Zach says into Chris’s neck. “But--”

Chris’s eyes are closed. Zach’s hair is tickling his temple and he can smell Zach’s shampoo and it’s perfect and infuriating, and Zach’s right, which is the worst thing. 

“I know,” Chris says. “Maybe we shouldn’t.” 

“Because we’ll just fuck and not talk about anything,” Zach says, taking another step back. 

“Right.” 

“And it’ll be really good but then--then we’ll be right back where we were before. Where we are, I guess, because we...haven’t talked about anything.” 

“Right,” Chris says again. He screws his eyes shut, opens them again. He feels a little drunk, and he thinks being mad would probably be better because then at least he’d be thinking more clearly than he is right now, all lust-addled by three minutes of not-kissing in Zach’s cramped kitchen. 

“And I don’t--fuck, am I doing it again?” 

Chris shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. “Besides...” He feels his face heat up. He looks at the cactus.

“What? Say it.” 

“I meant what I told you before, when I was in London. I...think I like it when you tell me what to do.” 

Now it’s Zach’s turn to blush, which Chris isn’t actually sure he’s ever seen before. “Jesus, Chris.” 

“Not like all the time, though. Just sometimes. Mainly just, um...” 

“In the bedroom?” Zach lowers his voice theatrically and waggles his eyebrows at Chris. 

“Maybe.” 

Zach laughs, and his blush deepens. He scrubs at his face with a hand. “We’re trying to take it down a few notches, not--” He shifts uncomfortably. He looks half-hard in his jeans. 

Chris crosses his arms over his chest. He’s frankly not entirely certain they won’t just reach for Zach of their own volition at this point. “Let’s go sit down or something,” he says. 

They go into the living room, and Chris sits gingerly down on the couch. The upholstery looks pristine, but Chris imagines he can see a watermark anyway. He traces a sine wave along the cushion with a finger. 

“I took it to this specialist leather cleaner,” Zach says. “It was kind of a pain in the ass.” 

“I’m sorry,” Chris says. 

Zach’s hands lie in his lap, and he stares down at them. “Me too.” 

Chris sighs, leaning back. “That was a weird night.” 

Zach nods. “You were so pissed off; you were storming around grabbing your shit. You looked like you wanted to throw something. I was a little scared, man.” 

“I did not. I mean, I was mad, but--” 

“It was kind of funny.” 

“Dude, aren’t you supposed to be all contrite right now?” He nudges Zach’s foot with his own. 

Zach snorts. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. But it was.” 

They fall silent. Skunk and Noah have followed them in, arranged themselves into furry half-moons on the floor. Watching them makes Chris sleepy. It’s strange, he thinks, to sit here and joke back and forth about that night like it wasn’t the scene of the crime. 

“You...you said none of it was real,” Chris says. He hadn’t meant to bring it up, not now. Not really, anyway. But that’s the crux, isn’t it? Chris has been weighing the truth of those words for months. If they can’t make it back, those words will be the tipping point. Those words will be what killed them. Might as well bring out the gun and spin it around. 

Chris watches Zach. He’s still looking at his hands, and his mouth quirks downward. “I know,” he says, shaking his head pendulously. 

“If you think that, then there’s no way this can work.” 

“I know. Chris, look, maybe you were right. Maybe we should talk about this later--” 

“No. Isn’t this why I’m here? You were all hot to talk about it a minute ago; why are you suddenly doing a 180?” 

Zach’s sitting up straighter, picking his legs up off of the floor and crossing them under him on the couch. “I’m not, I’m just--” 

“Yeah, you fucking are! Come on, Zach. You practically begged me to come out here and talk in person, and here I am, so let’s fucking talk.” 

“I have to work later; I can’t go down there all upset, Chris. The character--” 

“Oh, right,” Chris drawls. “How could I forget, the almighty work. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past six months? I’ve been going to work, every day, while you swan in and out of my life whenever you fucking feel like it, without even thinking about how it might affect me. Because who cares, right? I’m just the straight guy screwing around, it’s not like I might actually have _feelings_ about any of this--” 

“Chris--” 

“--About any of this, or about you.” 

Zach scoffs. The sound does something to Chris, trips some switch deep inside, and for a moment he feels himself almost glow with rage, like he might actually throw something this time. Something big. 

“You have feelings for me?” Zach says incredulously. 

Chris fastens his gaze somewhere above Zach’s right ear. “I’m in love with you,” he says. 

Zach closes his eyes. 

Chris isn’t sure what he expects. His own heart is pounding in his chest; his armpits are clammy with sweat, and suddenly the last thing Chris wants is to sit here waiting for Zach to decide what to do. 

Chris vaults to his feet. He grabs his bag, and from the way Zach is watching him out of the corner of his eye Chris can tell he thinks he’s going to leave. He doesn’t; he turns and goes into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He turns the shower on, more to mask the sounds of Zach’s activity in the other room than anything else, but now that he’s in here he’s kind of stuck so he undresses and gets in. He stands there in the water, staring at the place where it swirls into the drain. There’s a loose spiral of rust staining the white floor of the tub like a coil of old blood. 

Chris stays in the shower for a long time. He gets out and dresses, goes out into the living room again. Zach is gone. On the coffee table is a piece of paper, pinned down by an empty mug. 

_Had to run an errand,_ it says in Zach’s felt-tip scrawl. _Back soon._

Chris isn’t sure how to feel about this. As it is, he’s about equal parts deflated and relieved. He goes into the bedroom, pulling a book out of the stack on Zach’s night stand and stretching out on the bed. The stupid red-eye is catching up with him, and he only gets through a few pages before he lets the book fall to his chest and closes his eyes.

***

He wakes to the lamp coming on, to the dip of the mattress. Zach touches his shoulder lightly, and Chris rolls over. There’s a blanket draped over him. The dogs have come in while he’s asleep, and he can feel two warm lumps down by his feet.

“Hey,” Zach says. “I’ve got to go, my call’s in like 45 minutes.” 

Chris rubs his eyes. “How long have I been asleep?” 

“Couple hours. I didn’t want to wake you.” 

“Fuck, sorry. I must’ve been wiped.” He sits up, blinks at Zach. “You left,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Zach says. “I...I had to pick up some dry cleaning for tonight; I was afraid I’d be too late after the show got out.” 

“Okay,” Chris says, even though it’s a pretty flimsy excuse. He feels all fuzzy-headed still. Zach isn’t helping, the way he’s kind of hovering, studiously not saying anything about their earlier conversation. “What are we doing tonight, anyway?” 

“We don’t have to,” Zach says hurriedly. “Only if you want. But this friend of mine has this bar, and they’re having a thing.” 

“Sounds good.” 

“Yeah, I think it’ll be fun. But if it’s not, we can leave. It’s not a big deal. Oh, and don’t worry about food, I’m going to bring something home.” 

“Pizza?” Chris says. “From that place?” He hasn’t had lunch, which his stomach is rapidly reminding him of. And that place is really good, and he hasn’t had it in forever. 

“Pizza, from that place,” Zach says, rolling his eyes. Then he sighs, looking away. He reaches out and scratches Skunk behind the ears. The dog twitches in his sleep, whining softly at nothing. Zach sighs. “Hey, about earlier--” 

“It’s okay,” Chris says automatically, even though it’s really not. “I just...I needed to say it, and I guess I get why you might have wanted to wait to talk, but I feel like I’ve been waiting to say that for a really long time and if I didn’t I was going to, like, hulk smash through your wall or something.” 

Zach smiles at that, small and subdued. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I should never have said what I said on the phone that night. I...I never meant it, Chris. I think I wanted to. Maybe I still do. But it’s not true.” 

His shoulders slump a little, and he looks so pathetic that Chris can’t help lurching forward, getting an arm around Zach’s neck and dragging him down onto the bed, half prone. “I gotta go,” Zach says in protest, but Chris holds him fast and the words come out muffled. Zach’s face is smushed against Chris’s chest, but Chris kisses the parts he can reach: Zach’s ear, the side of his head. He relinquishes his grip after a moment or two, gratified that Zach takes awhile to sit up. When he does, his nose is red. He swipes at it with the back of his hand. “I really need to go,” he says. “I wish--” 

“No you don’t wish,” Chris says. “Go on, get out of here. Break a leg, or whatever it is very serious thespians say on Broadway.” 

“That’ll work,” Zach says. “Thank you.” He sighs. “I am sorry, though. It’d be better if I didn’t have to go.” 

“It’s fine,” Chris says. “I’ll hang out. I can take the dogs for a walk or something.” 

“Be careful,” Zach says. “Walking these two solo is not for the faint of heart.” 

“Maybe two walks then,” Chris says. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal.” 

Zach gets off of the bed with what appears to be significant effort. “Okay,” he says. 

“Go,” Chris says, waving his hand. “And don’t come back until you’ve dazzled a full house and fetched me a large Margherita pizza.” 

“Extra cheese, extra sauce?” 

“Always.” 

Zach grins then, and Chris mirrors it without even thinking. For a split second, everything’s normal, like Chris really has stepped into that parallel universe where they finished dinner in Berlin and went back to the hotel and watched HBO until the wee hours and never had any kind of amazing sex or angst-ridden quasi-relationship at all. 

_Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve,_ thinks Chris. _Anything can happen._

Then Zach’s smile whets to a white and pointed thing that skewers Chris’s alternate history straight through. That this feels more normal to Chris than almost anything about today should probably be cause for concern. But it’s too hot, and it gets Chris right in the gut the way it always does. Zach bites his lip, and Chris is afraid for an irrational second that he’ll draw blood. 

“Better rest up, Pine,” Zach says, and then he’s out the door. 

“Goddammit,” Chris says to the slumbering dogs.

***

Chris makes good on his promise to take the dogs out, but per Zach’s recommendation he does it separately. He takes Noah down to the dog park a couple blocks over. It’s mostly deserted; it’s a cold day, and most people are probably busy getting ready for big nights out.

Chris has mixed feelings about New Year’s Eve. It generally ends up a disappointment, so he tries to keep his expectations low these days. He thinks there are probably two kinds of people, people like him who need to be vigorously encouraged to give a shit about it, and people who have complex and multi-tiered plans set up weeks if not months in advance. He gets the impression Zach falls into the latter category. 

Time gets away from him at the dog park, and he doesn’t have as long to spend on Skunk, which makes Chris feel slightly guilty. Skunk’s littler, at least. Maybe he doesn’t have as much energy to burn. And anyway, it can’t be helped. Zach’s getting back to the apartment around 7, so Chris has just about an hour to groom himself and generally freak out in private. 

He takes another shower, then distracts himself by poking around in Zach’s medicine cabinet like he’d wanted to before. It turns out Zach’s a master of products, and as such snooping is frankly a pretty fascinating exercise. Chris dealt with the whole bad skin thing when he was younger, but these days he’s thankfully grown out of it enough to be able to be pretty laissez-faire about his skin’s care and feeding. Zach, though...Zach’s living on a whole other planet. Chris paws his way through exfoliants and ointments, lotions and cleansers. He opens a few, sniffs them. He’s not dumb enough to actually try any; with his luck he’d have some kind of allergic reaction and break out in hives everywhere, or Zach would recognize the smell on his skin, grin at him with that pointy look and say sweetly that, hey, he thinks he uses that moisturizer too. 

Chris leaves the skincare behind and sniffs an expensive-looking bottle of cologne on the bathroom counter before returning to the cabinet to find a few boring prescriptions he doesn’t recognize. Leftover antibiotics. Ooh, wait, this might be a painkiller. 

_Hmm,_ he thinks. _Now we’re talking._

He’s scooted aside a big hundred-count jar of vitamins to get to the back row on the bottom shelf when he hears the dogs start barking and the front door open. He straightens with a jolt, clocking his head on the open cabinet door and dropping a bottle of pills into the sink. The childproof top pops off and a quarter or so of the tablets fall into the slick basin. 

“Dammit!” Chris mutters, as they slurp up the water and rapidly start to soften. He scrapes the remnants into his hand, flushes them like an addict waiting for the cops and wipes his hand off on his jeans. Then he carefully, quietly replaces the evidence and closes the cabinet door, goes out into the living room. Zach’s down on the floor with Noah and Skunk, seemingly none the wiser. There’s a pleasingly large, square, grease-stained box sitting on the coffee table where Zach’s note had been earlier. 

“Hi,” Chris says quickly. “How’d it go?” 

Zach looks up. “Are you okay? You look kind of flushed.” 

“Huh? Oh no, I’m fine. Took a hot shower.” 

Zach gives him an odd look, but doesn’t press further. “It was good; thanks for asking,” he says. “We’ve had some issues with people taking pictures and stuff up in the gallery, so I was wondering if New Year’s Eve would be a weird crowd. But it was fine. It’s funny, everyone--Cherry and all them, I mean--was asking what I’m doing tonight. It’s like they wouldn’t let it go.” 

“What did you tell them?” 

“That a friend’s in town.” Zach smiles at this, and Chris thinks he sees a hint of the earlier flush creep back into his cheeks. But it’s warm in here, and he’s just come in from the cold. Probably just windburn. 

Chris’s stomach capitalizes on the semi-comfortable silence by growling.

“Uh,” Chris says. 

“Oh my god,” Zach says. “Yes, go right ahead, Pine. Eat your fucking pizza.” 

“I haven’t eaten all day.” 

“And whose fault is that? Certainly not mine.” 

“I was out of sorts, okay?” 

Zach goes into the kitchen, emerges a second later with a set of plates. He sets them down on the coffee table next to the pizza box. “You want a drink?” 

“Sure,” Chris says. “Might as well start pre-gaming for later, right?” 

“Oh my _god_. Right, so we’re nice and lit for the _rager_ at Alpha Delta Whatever. Can we play Beirut, too?” 

“What the fuck is Beirut?” 

“You know, red Solo cups? Ping-pong table?” Zach mimes throwing something. 

“Uh, you mean beer pong?” 

Zach shrugs. “I don’t know, man. We always called it Beirut.” 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe...” He whistles, a sound-effect shell, then splays his hands in a mini explosion. 

Chris makes a face. “That is...kind of offensive, actually.” 

“You know, it is, now that I think about it. Okay, so I’m getting you a beer. No red cups, though.” 

“Thank god for that,” Chris says. 

They eat pizza and drink an organic golden ale or whatever from very sophisticated pint glasses, and they don’t talk about anything especially important. The usual catching up questions they didn’t have time for earlier, because they were too busy not kissing and not talking. Not really, anyway. There was the whole declaration of love part, but Chris thinks they might be operating under the assumption that that didn’t happen.

“How’s your family?” Zach asks in a sing-song voice.

“Eh, can’t complain. What about you?” 

“Pretty good. They gave me shit about not coming home for Christmas, but what are you going to do, you know?” Zach shrugs, tossing a crust into the empty half of the box. 

“I, uh, ran into Joe,” Chris ventures. “Right before Christmas.” 

Zach takes a swallow of his drink. “I know,” he says. “He told me. He said you were buying, like, marmalade or something at Williams-Sonoma.” 

“It was chutney,” Chris says. “But basically. And stop looking at me like that; it was for my mom.” 

“Whatever. Anyway, yeah, I...talked to Joe about it. It’s one of the reasons I decided to suck it up and call you, actually.” 

“Wait, really?” Chris is suddenly mortified. “What’d he say?” Chris must have looked nuts standing there in that store. It’s the only explanation. He must have looked like a complete wreck, standing there stuffing marshmallows into his mouth and asking after Zach all plaintively. 

“He didn’t say anything,” Zach says, shooting Chris a curious look. “He just...he said you looked kind of tired, and that you asked about me. It made me think...it made me think that maybe I hadn’t completely fucked everything up, that you might actually listen to me if I tried to talk to you again.” 

Chris throws his own gnawed crust into the box. “I’d always have talked to you.” 

“Would you?” Zach says. 

Even as Zach says the words, Chris thinks back to his conversation with Katie. _I’m done,_ he’d said. And he’d meant it at the time, hadn’t he? Or was that just because he thought Zach was done with him? The thought troubles Chris, and it seems somehow important to him that this not be the case. 

“I--yeah,” Chris says, because he’s not sure what else to say. Because he might not want it to be, but he has a growing, looming sense of certainty that it’s true. 

_It wasn’t real._ What could Zach have said worse than that? _I hate you_ , maybe. _I wish we’d never met._ But you can’t even begin to say those things about something that isn’t real, can you? 

Zach’s looking away again. “Well...I’m glad,” he says. He looks down at the empty box with distaste. “Ugh, I cannot order this fucking pizza without eating too much. It’s a physical impossibility.” He rubs his stomach. Chris wants to kiss him. 

“So what time do you want to go to this thing?” Chris asks, by way of distracting himself. 

“I think it officially starts at 10,” Zach says. “But I don’t know if you want to hang out for two whole hours before midnight.” 

Chris shrugs. “Why not,” he says. “I haven’t been out in awhile. Might be fun.” 

If he’s being honest, Chris could do with some loud music and low lighting right about now. After all these months, this much Zach feels like blaring sun after too long in the shade. But fuck, Chris has been cold. And the sun’s bright, and it looks so damn good. 

Zach looks at Chris, biting his lip like he’s deliberating. “Cool,” he says. “I just need to get dressed.” 

Chris looks down at his own ratty jeans and t-shirt. “Uh, I’m definitely not going out in this,” he says. “So, me too, I guess.” 

Zach barricades himself in the bathroom for the better part of an hour, Chris hoping to hell he put everything back where he found it earlier. When he finally emerges, Chris is sitting on the bed reading. He looks up, and then he does a hopefully not painfully obvious double take at Zach in his eveningwear. Zach catches him looking, and Chris is stuck in the moment like it’s amber. Zach is wearing black, these tight jeans with a kind of waxy finish to the denim that Chris could never pull off, and a black t-shirt that fits perfectly and was thus almost certainly incredibly expensive. 

“You look good,” Chris says finally, his mouth dry. He’s been attracted to Zach, obviously, and he’s gotten off on what they’ve done together. But this is the first time he can remember this animalistic jolt of _want_ , like he could jump Zach right now just for existing. Interesting. 

Zach looks down at himself. “Oh, um, thanks,” he says, even though he clearly knows he looks good, has probably had his outfit planned for days. He opens the closet and digs out a grey leather jacket Chris remembers from the press tour, his black boots. 

Chris is wearing a slightly upgraded version of his typical nice-jeans-and-buttondown situation, and he suddenly feels vastly less cool than Zach. Zach looks him up and down, though, and there’s no missing the way his mouth quirks up in a private grin that makes Chris feel distinctly blushy. 

“You look good too,” Zach says. 

Chris swallows. “So, you ready?” 

The night warrants warmer clothing than they have on, but Chris figures it’s okay. He can suffer for fashion with the best of them. Besides, the women out here on the street are wearing way less than he is and they seem to be doing fine, although Chris thinks most of them are probably a few drinks ahead of him. 

“We could’ve gotten a car, but it’s pretty close,” Zach says. 

“It’s fine,” Chris says. “I like walking.” He admires the way Zach just goes for it here. He does it everywhere, really, but it’s especially obvious here in the city, where he’s clearly grown so comfortable. _I could live here,_ Chris thinks. He really could. There’s magic in the air, he thinks cheesily, and not just because it’s December 31st. 

Their shoulders bump as they walk, the backs of their hands brush together, and it would be such a small movement to reach out and take Zach’s hand. But it feels like too much of an assumption to do so now out here on the sidewalk, so Chris doesn’t. He decides to let the sum of all these accidental touches speak for itself, if it can. 

The bar, when they reach it, is nice. What Chris can see of it, anyway--it’s dark, lit by fleets of white candles and rotund lanterns. There’s a rosemary-bush Christmas tree up on the bar and a decent crowd, a whole cluster of people pressed into a square of dancefloor toward the back of the room. There’s a DJ, and the music’s kind of dark and crunchy-sounding. 

Zach’s friends--the ones he’s met, anyway--are the kind of people who seem generally unimpressed with Chris. He guesses it’s good, because sycophants are annoying at best, but it’s still a bit of a rude awakening. He wonders if Zach talks about him, and what he says if he does. He wonders if it seems odd to them that he’s here. 

Zach breaks away from the guy he’s talking to to lean in close to Chris’s ear. “You want a drink?” 

Chris nods yes, and before long there’s a cocktail pressed into his hand. “House special,” Zach whisper-yells. “I have no idea what it is.” 

“Great,” Chris says. But it’s not half-bad, really, and he ends up on his second soon enough, stuck watching Zach flit between groups of people while Chris half talks to a girl with icy-blond Cleopatra hair whose name he can’t remember right now and who is, again, way too cool for him. She’s talking about Bruce Nauman. Chris is looking at Zach. As if he can feel it, Zach looks up and meets Chris’s eye, and for a second it’s alchemical, like they’re the only two people there. The corner of Zach’s mouth twitches, then he looks away. Just like that, Chris can’t handle it anymore. He really is done, he decides. Only...not the way he thought he was back in L.A. 

He turns to Cleopatra. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Will you excuse me for a minute?” He doesn’t wait for her reply, because he doesn’t actually care at all. He takes a deep breath, walks over to Zach, and taps him on the shoulder. 

Zach turns. “What’s up?” he asks, looking faintly surprised. 

“Can we...will you come with me for a second?” 

“Sure,” Zach says. 

Chris nods at the guy Zach was talking to. “Sorry,” he says. Then he grabs Zach by the wrist and pulls. 

“Where are we going?” Zach calls over the insistent beat of the music. 

“Dancing,” Chris yells. 

“What?” 

“You heard me, Quinto.” 

Chris kind of manhandles Zach into the crowd. He sees Zach cast about at the faces of the surrounding dancers, sees him notice that they either don’t recognize them or don’t care. It’s dark on the dancefloor, anyway, the lanterns bobbing over the bar seeming to pulse at a distant remove despite the relatively small size of the room. 

Chris is struck with a brief moment of uncertainty, as it occurs to him he hasn’t ever really danced with a guy before. What they did in the club in Berlin hadn’t really been dancing, not for very long anyway. Chris can’t dance for shit, is the problem. But what he can do is grab Zach, wrap his arms around his waist and move. Zach’s shoulders begin to shake, and Chris realizes he’s laughing. Chris pulls back with a pang of doubt, but Zach pulls him close again. 

So, they dance. They start out moving with the beat, but before long they’re wrapped up together and swaying to nothing in particular but whatever’s in their own heads, which seems--for once--to be in time. 

The music slows, like it’s giving way to them. Chris’s head is on Zach’s shoulder, and it should be embarrassing but he is way past giving a fuck about anything now. He tilts his face so his mouth is right at Zach’s ear, because he’ll be damned if he’s going to go unheard after all this, after everything. He swallows.

“This is real,” Chris says. “This is real, Zach.” 

Nothing. For a beat, for two. Chris closes his eyes. Zach tightens his grip on Chris and draws a ragged breath at Chris’s ear, drags his mouth over it in a messy half-kiss. There’s a smear of warm wet along Chris’s cheekbone that’s not his. 

“I know,” Zach says.

***

Chris waits out front while Zach makes their excuses, says his goodbyes. He comes out and meets Chris on the sidewalk. There’s a moment just before he looks up and finds Chris’s eyes; Zach’s looking down, negotiating a step maybe. He’s smiling, just to himself, just like that, and Chris thinks he’s never seen anything better.

They make it about halfway home before midnight hits, muffled explosions of _Happy New Year!_ and the far-off pop of illicit firecrackers going up all around them. Chris barely gets a second to turn to Zach before Zach’s grabbing the front of his shirt and dragging Chris down a side street, into a slightly murkier patch of shadow. 

They stop walking, pivot to face one another. Zach doesn’t loosen his grip on Chris’s shirt. Chris looks down at where the pale cotton is crumpled in his fingers and sees that Zach’s hands are shaking. They’re so close now, closer than they were in the kitchen earlier today. Zach’s eyes glimmer wetly in the ambient light; he opens his mouth, closes it like he’s trying to talk and can’t. 

Zach tries again. “I--” But he gives up, shakes his head, and there’s something about Zach speechless that staggers Chris. There’s something between them here that he’s never seen before, Zach impossibly soft-seeming, Chris suddenly desperate to do right by it.

Zach looks away, makes a sobby kind of noise. Chris reaches for him, uses his index finger to crook under Zach’s chin, a suggestion of movement. 

“Shh,” Chris says. “C’mere and kiss me.”

And miracle of miracles, for once in his life and probably never again, Zach shuts up and listens.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NYE in NYC, continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some discussion of choking/breathplay.

Zach fumbles with the door key and they half fall through. Chris catches himself, dodges the dogs and then catches Zach, backs him up against the nearest wall so they can keep kissing. Zach lets him do it for a few minutes, but then he ducks away, running a hand through his hair. 

“I need to take the dogs out.” 

“I’ll come with you,” Chris says. 

“No, stay,” Zach says. “It’ll only take a second.” He grabs up their leashes, and the action’s enough to whip the dogs into a frenzy. They make manic loop-de-loops around Chris’s legs while Zach kneels and tries to subdue them long enough to get the leashes on. 

When they’re out the door, Chris looks around the apartment, feeling brought up short. He goes into the bathroom and splashes water on his face, brushes his teeth. Zach’s cologne is sitting on the counter and, without thinking, Chris takes it up and sprays some on his neck. He makes a sexy pheromone face in the mirror, which makes him think about Zach’s sexy pheromone face, which makes him drop his gaze and blush at the sink like an idiot. 

Bathroom activities complete, he goes into the bedroom and considers his options. Should he get undressed? Should he get in bed? Is that weird? It’s not like they’ve never done this before. But are they even going to do it? Do they still have to talk? Yes, Chris decides. They do. Whether or not they necessarily need to do it tonight, though, remains a question. In the end, Chris takes his shoes off and sits cross-legged on the bed, reading the same sentence of his book about eighteen times before he hears Zach come back in with Skunk and Noah. He flips the book closed and watches the doorway expectantly. He has the vague thought that he should maybe look away, but then Zach’s there and he doesn’t have a choice anymore but to look at him. 

Zach slouches against the doorframe. He looks tired, Chris thinks. Tired and a little sad, tentative almost, like he’s not sure he can come into his own room. Chris pats the bed next to him. 

“Is this okay?” he says. 

Zach smiles. “You think I don’t want you in my bed?” he asks. 

“No,” Chris says. “I mean...I don’t know. I hope so?” 

Zach shakes his head. He takes his shirt off, unbuttons his jeans. Chris feels a little weird about watching, so he looks back down at his book. When he looks up again, Zach’s butt naked and standing at his dresser, rummaging through a drawer. He pulls out a pair of pajama pants and bends to put them on, one leg at a time. It looks...pretty awkward, and Chris can’t help but snort with laughter. 

“You know, you can undress too,” Zach says without turning around. “You don’t have to just sit there and stare at my ass.” He opens the lid of a little wooden box on the top of the dresser and pulls out a plastic baggie and a pipe. “You feel like smoking at all? I feel like I need to chill out a bit.” 

Chris swallows. “I already brushed my teeth,” he says, apropos of nothing. 

“I won’t tell your mom,” Zach says. “Turn on that lamp, will you?” He hits the overhead lights and plops onto the bed next to Chris, watching with interest as Chris takes his jeans off. He folds them--old dogs can so learn new tricks, dammit--and drops them beside the bed in the vicinity of his shoes. 

Zach packs the bowl and grabs a lighter from his nightstand. He takes a hit and makes the vaguely concerned-looking face of someone who’s trying to hold smoke in, then he exhales in a long sweep of breath and passes the pipe to Chris. 

The weed smells good, pungent and skunky and sticky, and as he breathes the smoke in he imagines he can feel the heavy languor it’s going to bring with it, feel it seeping into his limbs already. 

“Are you okay?” Chris asks, voice all cramped with the exhale. 

Zach nods. “Just...it was weirder than I thought it’d be, you coming.” He holds up a hand. “Not bad,” he says. “Uncomfortable, maybe, but I guess...I guess that’s my fault.” 

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Chris says, feeling charitable. He sighs. “So you wanna tell me what happened with your boyfriend?” He wants to wince a little, using the word. Zach actually does wince, hearing it. 

“Fuck, I don’t know. It was like as soon as we decided to try and make it a thing it stopped working. And I felt like shit after that night on the phone, Chris. You should’ve seen me trying to get it together to go back into that restaurant.” 

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me about him?” 

Zach sighs. “I don’t know. Stupid reasons. He was pretty young; I thought maybe you’d give me shit about it and I didn’t want to deal with it.” 

“Why would I even care about that? And I am not the one who’s historically the giver of shit in this relationship,” Chris says. “Just saying.” 

Zach giggles around the pipe in his mouth. “Oof, this is pretty good,” he says. “Anyway, though, it’s not my fault you’re such a...” 

“Such a _what?_ ” Chris elbows him. 

“Such a Christopher.” Zach giggles again, so Chris elbows him again. Zach’s bare arm is warm against his. It feels nice, Chris thinks, his brain already blunted to hedonism by the weed. Nice, nice, nice. 

“I’m your Christopher, though,” he says. He can feel Zach turn to look at him. The air feels close and syrupy all of a sudden; when Chris tries to turn his head to look back it seems to take more time than it should. 

“Are you?” Zach says. He sounds faintly amused, but there’s an undercurrent there too, of something darker and a little more serious. 

“Um,” Chris says. “I mean, I could be.” 

“Mmm,” Zach says. He crosses his arms over his bent knees, stares across at Chris. “Yeah, I think you could be.” 

Chris plucks the pipe from Zach’s hand. “Oh my god,” he says. “One more and then that’s it for me.” He takes a hit, a big one. Better make it count. “Are you still afraid I’m just fucking around?” 

Zach stares off into space for a minute. “Honestly?” he says. “Yeah. But--” 

“Zach--” 

“It’s...it’s not your fault,” he says. “It’s just me, it’s my own shit. I gotta...” He shakes his head. “I need to get over it. But I feel like if you wait for me to get over it nothing is ever going to happen, so--” 

He drops his head down onto his arms and makes a frustrated noise. 

Chris blinks. He’s really fucking stoned. His whole body is thrumming now, but he tries to get past it a little, because this is important, this is it, right here and now. 

_Concentrate, dammit._ “What if,” he says. “What if we make a deal.” 

Zach looks at him. “What do you mean?” 

“It’s pretty simple. You try and get over it,” Chris says. “And I won’t fuck you around.” 

“You can’t promise that,” Zach says. 

“Sure I can. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen, but I can promise you that I’m not going to be a dick.” 

“Really.” 

Chris sighs. “I said it before,” he says. “I love you. And I’m not...I know I haven’t been through what you have. It’s been easier for me than it has for you, by like a million miles. But I swear, Zach, I swear, If we don’t work, if it all gets fucked up--maybe it’ll be my fault, but it won’t be because I just changed my mind.”

Chris’s throat is tightening up, choking off his voice. Chris’s grip on Zach feels so tenuous, has all day if he’s being honest. It feels like he’s barely been able to glimpse today’s Zach, like he keeps getting these snatches of the old version, the Zach who’d offered himself to Chris so sweetly and with so much swagger all those months ago. 

Zach draws a shaky breath. He turns, leaning over Chris to put the pipe back on the nightstand. Then he sits up on his knees to straddle Chris’s body. He’s practically in Chris’s lap now; Chris can smell him, that cologne and a frisson of BO, but like a hot BO, and okay, Chris really is a little bit gone now, but whether it’s the weed or just Zach is unclear. Maybe inextricable. 

“Okay,” Zach says. 

“Okay?” 

“I’ll take your deal, Pine.” 

“Oh,” Chris says. “Okay.” 

Zach drapes his arms over Chris’s shoulders. “Is that all you have to say?” 

“Fuck you,” Chris says, smiling into Zach’s neck. “How about that, that work for you?” 

Zach laughs, his dark bedroom panther laugh. He shifts, grinding himself lightly against Chris. He slides his hands down onto Chris’s chest and pushes him down onto the mattress, leaning down and kissing him. Just a press of lips at first, then his tongue slips into Chris’s mouth and coaxes it open wider. Zach nips at Chris’s bottom lip, sucks it until it aches, then withdraws. 

“I love you,” he says against Chris’s ear, so low that Chris isn’t entirely sure he didn’t just imagine it. Then, louder, “Take your shirt off.” And yeah, that Chris definitely did not imagine. 

He yanks the shirt off over his head, yelping as Zach slides his hands down inside the waistband of Chris’s boxers and closes his fingers around Chris’s dick without pretense. 

“These too.” 

“Fuck,” Chris says. 

“You said you liked being told what to do.” 

“Yeah, but...I can’t take them off if you’re going to--” 

“Try,” Zach says. 

So Chris leans back and angles his hips up, so he can drag his boxers off around the hand Zach’s using to fist his dick. Chris feels like he’s underwater, head all heavy with his high and the way Zach’s words seem to have made his extremities equally leaden and incommodious. 

“There we go,” Zach says approvingly. “Yeah, I wanted to see you.” 

“Take yours off,” Chris says. 

Zach shakes his head. “When I feel like it.” He makes a show of looking Chris’s body up and down, like Chris is merchandise he’s considering buying. 

“You like what you see?” Chris says. 

Zach nods, slowly. “You look good. Turn over, I want to see the rest of you.” 

Chris does, feeling a thrill run through him at the thought of Zach in contact with his ass after so long. True to form, Zach homes right in on it, placing a warm palm on the small of Chris’s back and sliding it up the curve of his cheeks to where they meet the back of his thighs. 

“Mmm, you got your Kirk butt back for me,” Zach says. “I appreciate the gesture.” 

“I ate a lot of cookies over Christmas. It was pretty rough.” 

Zach laughs. “Well, your effort does not go unnoticed.” He grabs a handful of Chris’s ass and makes a pleased animal sound, then scoots up the bed and brushes his fingers through Chris’s hair, speaks right into his ear and sends an electric thrill straight down Chris’s spine. 

“Hey, um,” he says, with a faintly giggly undertone. “Remember what I was telling you about that time on the phone?” 

“There were multiple times.” 

“Oh, right. This one was when I was talking about your ass, though, and how it’d look with a handprint on it.” 

Chris kind of whimpers at that, and Zach clutches Chris’s ass harder. “I want to see it all pinked up,” Zach says. He lets go of his handful of flesh and spanks it gently with the flat of his hand. “Can I?” 

“You want to spank me?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay,” Chris says. 

Zach hums, rubbing Chris’s ass as if soothing it preemptively. “Fuck, Chris,” he says. “It’s going to look so good. It--mmph.” 

He smacks Chris’s ass, more forcefully than he expected. It’s loud in the quiet of the room, and the pain flares brightly and then dies away. Not so bad. Then there’s another, on the opposite side, and then a third right down the middle. The impact does strange things to Chris--even as it hurts, it’s like the pain smolders down until he can feel it deep inside, and the sensation goes straight to his dick. 

“Ah,” Chris gasps. “Like that, do that again.” 

“You like it?” Zach sounds breathless as if from effort, even though Chris knows that it’s not exactly a strenuous activity. 

Chris nods and Zach does it again, then again, the blows coming faster now without breathing space in between. The pain doesn’t have much of a chance to dissipate, just builds and builds in a slow burn. It fucking hurts, but each impact ripples through Chris’s body to his dick against the bed, reaches down to nerve endings that seem intent on reminding Chris that Zach hasn’t fucked him in a really long time. 

Chris moans, not entirely from the pain, but Zach doesn’t know that. He hesitates, and the break in the rhythm takes Chris by surprise, so that he braces for a jolt that doesn’t come. 

“Oh my god,” Zach says. He stops his assault, cupping one of Chris’s ass cheeks gently. “I wish you could feel. There’s, like, heat coming off you, and you look so fucking pretty, Chris, all rosy.” 

He sounds so pleased, and that does something to Chris too, makes him smile into the pillow and feel all glowy, like he’s just nailed an audition or run a really fast mile. 

“I should stop, I guess,” Zach says. “That’s probably enough for now.” 

“Did--did you like it?” The answer should be obvious, but it feels important to Chris to hear it for some reason. 

There’s a soft rustle, and then something rough against Chris’s tender, sensitized skin. Zach’s cheek, and then his lips, feeling almost cool by contrast. He kisses Chris’s tailbone. “Yeah,” he says. “I loved it. Thank you.” 

He keeps kissing, working his way around in a circle until he’s back to Chris’s tailbone again, and the feel of him so close...it’s killing Chris; his skin is still burning and he thinks he knows what Zach’s up to, but he’s not completely sure--

_Please,_ he thinks. _Please please please._

Chris feels a faint tickle. Zach’s hair--he’s leaning his forehead up against Chris like he’s headbutting him, and then Chris feels Zach’s hands. He moans into the pillow as Zach spreads him, and yeah, Chris has missed this. 

“You look so good,” Zach is saying, every word a puff of warm air against Chris’s skin. “I want to fucking eat you.” 

As if in punctuation, he bites, right into the crack of Chris’s ass, so there’s a deadly combination of teeth and tongue and spit and it all feels like it’s everywhere at once. After that, he goes for it zealously, reducing Chris to a whining pile of nerve endings as Zach teases him with his tongue and his teeth, spreading him wider and then pausing like he’s trying to decide how to best apply himself to melting Chris’s brain. Chris can almost see him, brows furrowed, staring at Chris’s asshole like it’s a math problem. 

_That’s easy,_ Chris thinks dazedly. _I know the answer to that one._ Zach licks at Chris with the flat of his tongue, obviously having figured it all out for himself, and Chris jerks his hips against the bed. 

“Look at you,” Zach says. “You’re so greedy, Pine. You want it all.” 

“Damn straight,” Chris says, and Zach laughs. 

“You want to come like this?” he asks. “I bet I could make you, just like this. Just my mouth.” 

It’s tempting, but fuck, it’s been so long. Chris shakes his head. “Fuck me,” he says. “Please?” 

Zach moans against Chris’s ass, making him squirm. “Yeah,” he mutters. “I’ll fuck you.” 

There’s an extra-lewd sucking sound, and then Chris feels Zach slide two wet fingers down alongside his tongue, circling Chris’s hole and pushing inside. The stretch burns a little, and Chris flinches. Zach lays this free hand on Chris’s back again, rubbing a slow circle. 

“Can you reach that drawer?” he asks Chris as he struggles one-handed out of his pants.

Chris can, although leaning over and rummaging through it with Zach’s fingers in his ass is...strange, to say the least. He locates a tube of K-Y and a condom and tosses it back towards Zach. 

“Nice aim, Pine.” 

“Okay, I’ll come finger your ass while making you perform motor skills tests, and we’ll see how that goes.” 

Zach’s fingers withdraw, and there’s a cool squelch of lube introduced to the proceedings. “That’d be interesting,” Zach says. 

“Do you ever--” 

“Oh, sometimes,” Zach says casually. “If the mood strikes.” 

“You made it seem like some kind of unicorn before,” says Chris. 

“Well, sometimes I’m into unicorns.” He twists his fingers inside Chris, angling them just right, and Chris moans, his head pitching forward into the mattress and all thoughts of mythical creatures forgotten. 

“Fuck, do it,” Chris says. 

“You sure?” 

“I think. Uh, last time I tried to do this ended up kind of weird, though.” 

There’s a pause, and Chris realizes the two of them have never actually talked about Chris’s thing with Jeremy. But whatever Zach is thinking, he elects not to voice it right now. “Weird how?” he asks instead. 

“It hurt.” 

Zach hums pensively. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll do it like this.” He slides his fingers gently out of Chris and wipes them on his pajama bottoms. The he reaches for Chris, taking him by the hips and pulling upwards. 

“Come up this way,” he says. “Up on your knees.” 

Chris kneels, then shifts forward down onto his elbows. Zach runs a hand over his ass, tracing what must be the edges of whatever marks he’s left. Then Chris can hear the crinkling sound of the condom wrapper opening, Zach rolling it on. His hand is back, smearing lube over Chris’s hole and working it carefully inside with his fingers. The few minutes it’s taken to get set up seem to have brought Chris down a little, and the press of Zach’s fingers makes him squirm. 

“Zach, maybe--”

“Shh,” Zach says. “It’s going to be good. You’ll see.” 

“What if it’s not? What if my ass is broken?” 

Zach snorts. “It isn’t. But if it is, then I guess I’ll just have to take one for the team and let you fuck me all the time.” 

“Oh,” Chris says, taken aback. 

“But that’s not going to be necessary, so.” 

Zach nudges up against Chris. “Jerk your dick,” he says, and Chris does, reaching between his legs to take himself in hand. Zach pushes inside, and Chris braces himself, but then Zach slides back out again, thrusts shallowly into Chris. His ass feels tender, but there’s none of that wrong feeling he got last time. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Chris says, a little shakily. 

“Good. Now you’re going to fuck yourself on me,” Zach says matter-of-factly. 

“What?” 

“You heard me,” Zach says. “I’ve just got the head of my dick in you. That’s nothing, right? So I want you to touch yourself, and I want you to fuck yourself. You’re fine, see? You got it.” 

“Zach--” 

“Here, let me,” Zach says. 

He leans forward a bit, reaching around and moving Chris’s hand away. His hand is slick with lube, and Chris sighs as he lets his forehead fall against the pillows and gives himself over to Zach. Zach begins to jerk Chris off with an expert hand, and it’s a little astonishing to Chris that after all this time Zach still seems to know exactly how he likes it. 

“You’re such a mess,” Zach says, but there’s no sting to the words, just amusement and affection. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of you.” 

And he does. He works Chris over, head bent low to his ear, whispering all kinds of things. “I missed this,” he says. “I missed this so much. Nobody takes it like you, Chris, did you know that? Come on, be good for me.” 

The words trip something in Chris, the words and the persistent sweetness of Zach’s hand. He moans, and relaxes back, letting Zach ease into him slowly. Zach’s hand bumps up against Chris, like he’s giving a blowjob and trying to prevent being inadvertently gagged. Part of Chris is waiting to want to stop, but he doesn’t. It just feels good, the way he remembered. It feels so, so good, and all Chris wants now is more. 

But...Zach’s not moving. Evidently, he’s taking his directive seriously, because even as Chris starts rock back onto him and take him deeper, he just sits there. In fact, he takes his hand away. and Chris pictures him with his hands on his hips like he’s just standing around, maybe checking his watch or something. No big deal, I’ve got all day. 

Chris starts to move, working his hips in a circle, driving back against Zach and gasping as he takes more of him in. It’s a little dry, skin dragging, but then there’s a movement in Chris’s peripheral vision and the cool addition of more lube. 

“Tell me how it feels,” Zach says. 

“G-good,” Chris stutters. “It feels good, it’s--it’s not like it was before. Zach, come on--” 

“Somehow--ah--somehow I knew it wouldn’t be too long before you started your pushy bottom routine.” 

“Shut _up,_ ” Chris says into the crease of his elbow. He’s slipped lower onto the bed now, feeling a little boneless, and Zach has to slide his hands back under him and jack him up so he’s got Chris back where he wants him. 

Zach drags one of his hands up the line of Chris’s back, skating his fingers through Chris’s hair, and that feels good too--or, it does until Zach makes a fist and yanks, pain catching sharply at the corners of Chris’s eyes. 

“Shut up and what?” he says softly. He’s breathing a little heavier, but otherwise his voice is level, and Chris has a sudden abstract moment wherein he contrasts this with Zach’s whispered declaration of just a few minutes ago. That had seemed much quieter, somehow. 

“And--and fuck me,” Chris says And then, because he knows Zach wants to hear it: “Please,” he adds. 

“Oh my god,” Zach says. “Here, flip over.” 

He slides out, gripping the base of the condom, and Chris rolls over onto his back. He inhales as the blanket makes contact with his ass--it’s got a dense woven pattern to the knit that’s making him feel interesting things with it pressed up against his tender skin. He must be more obvious than he thinks, because Zach watches him shift uncomfortably with a slow smile. 

“How’s it feel?” he asks. 

“It smarts,” Chris says, grumbling just a little, because it was hot while it was happening and hot while Zach was telling him how pretty his ass is but now it’s just...sore. 

“I might’ve overdone things,” Zach says, biting his lip. “You might bruise a little bit.” He swallows, and Chris thinks his eyes go a little wider. 

“Don’t look so excited about it,” Chris says. But his dick’s twitching minutely at the thought too. He remembers the bruises from before, pressing into them with the pads of his fingers, the ache calling up memories of Zach’s reverent mouth. 

“Sorry,” Zach says, like he’s not sorry at all. Then he turns his attention back to Chris’s body, brow furrowed in concentration as he slips in again. There’s a twinge of discomfort, and Chris tenses. 

“More lube,” Zach says, as if to himself. That helps, and Chris sighs as Zach pushes slowly inside him, deeper than he’s been yet tonight. 

“Ah,” Chris says. “It’s kind of--I mean, I’m fine, just...don’t go crazy, okay? At least not right this second.” 

Zach settles carefully over Chris, lies along him in parallel. He nips at Chris’s lips, cups his cheek with a hand. “Hi,” he says. 

Chris takes a breath. “Hi. Sorry I’m all--” 

Zach shakes his head. He kisses Chris’s temple. “You’re fine,” he says. “I don’t have to fuck you through the mattress every time. I--” 

He shifts, and they both gasp. It feels so strange to be lying here together like this, face to face, Chris so full of Zach after all this time. Chris rolls his hips upwards experimentally, and the result is highly satisfactory. 

“What do you want?” Zach asks. “Are you sure you’re good? We can stop.” 

“No, just--let me do it.” 

Zach laughs softly and kisses Chris again, on the lips this time. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll be your human dildo, Pine.” 

“Well, when you put it like that, it really sounds romantic.” 

Zach pushes himself up on his elbows and stays as still as he can.   
By some miracle of anatomy that he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to replicate, Chris gets a distinctly non-yogic leg hitched up against Zach. It takes more effort than he’d like to admit, but it lets him get some purchase with which to grind their bodies together. Chris’s dick is trapped between them, and while it’s not going to make him come any time soon, it’s giving him the slow burn of pleasure that Chris remembers from the very first times they did this. Back then, that feeling used to drive him crazy; it was always the tipping point, and before long he’d be face down on the bed, babbling at Zach to do whatever he wanted, as hard as he wanted, just to please please not stop. 

Zach starts to move, achingly slowly at first, not bothering to try and match Chris’s rhythm. Chris has his eyes screwed shut, but he opens them for a moment--accidentally, really--and when he does he gets a look at Zach’s face. His eyes are closed, his face tense with concentration. Chris feels like he’s watching something forbidden, like he should look away, but he doesn’t. 

Zach moves in Chris and a flicker of a smile finds the corners of his mouth. The sight of it does something to Chris, makes him sit up and balance on a hand and meet Zach halfway to kiss. He feels that same thickness in his throat that he felt before, when he was trying to make Zach a promise, and now he decides that maybe he can promise this way too. Because Zach may have taken the deal, but Chris supposes that this is the kind of thing that needs to be reiterated. Talking’s great, but there are walks that need to be walked. 

“I want more,” Chris says. 

“Huh?” 

“More,” he says again. “You--you feel really good.” 

Zach makes an appreciative noise. “Yeah, you too. God, Chris--” 

His head falls forward, and when it does, naturally his face is hidden. But it’s okay, Chris guesses, because then Zach slides into him deep enough to bottom out, and Chris can’t really focus on his face any more anyway. He lets his head loll to one side, but Zach takes hold of Chris’s chin, holding him in place and kissing him in a haphazard and not entirely painless collision.

“Shit,” Chris gasps into Zach’s mouth; unsurprisingly, it comes out muffled, and Zach just hums at him in response. Next to him on the bed Chris’s hand scrabbles around seemingly of its own volition. Zach reaches down and laces their fingers together, brings their twined hands up by Chris’s head on the pillow. He rolls his hips, angling himself just right, and Chris thinks he can feel it in his teeth. 

“Feel good?” Zach murmurs. 

Chris just nods, or tries to. Zach has moved his hand away from Chris’s face, further down so that his thumb and middle finger are propped on either side of Chris’s jawbone, palm against his throat. He doesn’t apply any pressure, but the touch feels like a warning anyway, or maybe a promise. Chris swallows and his larynx bobs against Zach’s hand. 

“Remember when I had to do this for the movie?” Zach asks suddenly.

“Yes.” How could he fucking forget? They’d had some interesting conversations about how to play that scene. Some of them had involved lots of drinking, and, in retrospect, no small amount of sexual tension. 

“Makeup put those marks on you. They did a good job, Chris. Very realistic. But I thought--” 

He fucks up into Chris again, as if punctuating his statement. “ _Ah_ \--I used to go home every night and jack off thinking about asking you to let me do it instead.”

That makes Chris swallow again. He licks his lips. “Real Method of you.” 

Zach’s watching Chris’s throat. He bites his lip and traces the beat of Chris’s jugular with his thumb, turns his hand over and strokes Chris’s neck with his knuckles. “Would you have let me?” he asks teasingly. 

“Mmm.” Zach’s hand is doing all kinds of unexpected things to Chris, making his breath come quicker as if in anticipation, like Zach’s actually going to cut off his airway. “ Art for art’s sake, Zachary. think I might’ve found something compelling about your argument.” 

Zach moans at that, bending to kiss Chris again. He slides his free hand down Chris’s body, insinuating it between his ass and the bed, clutching at Chris like he did before the spanking started. He uses his grip as leverage to fuck Chris harder. 

“You drive me crazy,” he says as he does it. “You know that? You drive me fucking crazy, Chris, and I can’t--” He trails off, shaking his head. 

Chris is close now, has been for awhile. Zach playing at choking him hasn’t exactly helped him hold out, but he decides he can probably ruminate on that later. 

“Show me,” Chris says. “I haven’t seen you in months. Show me how much.” 

“Yeah,” Zach breathes. He sits back a bit, but not so far back that he can’t keep a hand at Chris’s throat. 

“Touch yourself,” he says.

Chris does. Zach pauses for a second, and then starts timing his thrusts into Chris with Chris’s hand. Chris jerks himself with one hand and reaches down with the other as far as he can go, trying to brush his fingertips against his hole, stretched as he is around Zach. 

“You want some more fingers, Pine? I knew you were a fucking slutty bottom. You were all coy about your gonzo porn, but you got off on it, didn’t you? Thinking about being so full you can fucking taste it. You want my fist in you, Chris? Is that it?” 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Chris grits out, just before he shoots over his hand, all over his belly. It seems like it goes on forever, Chris arching his back and hyperextending his neck under Zach’s hand. Zach’s fingers flex like they’re going to tighten, but then they relax again, Zach muttering something Chris can’t quite hear. 

“Yeah, come on,” Zach says, louder. “Fuck, you look so good when you come, your _face_ \--”

He drags his fingers through the mess and brings them up to Chris’s lips, runs his thumb over the bottom one. Chris opens his mouth, his whole body lax and acquiescent, and sucks on Zach’s fingers like they’re covered in fucking ambrosia instead of his own come. Zach chokes out another incomprehensible word. He drops his hand from Chris’s throat to his shoulder and digs in. 

“Oh god,” he says, “I’m gonna--” He yanks his hand out of Chris’s mouth and grabs at Chris’s fist, pulling it up to his lips and biting at the knuckles. He scrapes Chris’s skin like he might draw blood. His hair falls forward over his face and Chris tries to brush it back, to see, but Zach won’t let go of his hand in time. He thrusts once more and buries himself in Chris with a shudder, collapsing on top of him in a heap. After a minute, he rouses enough to dispose of the condom, tying it off and dropping it alongside the bed. 

“Whatever happened to your exacting standards for cleanliness?” 

“Ugh, fuck off,” Zach says. “I can barely think right now.” He flops back on top of Chris. “Am I crushing you?” he slurs into Chris’s neck, clearly an afterthought. 

“I’m fine.” Chris extricates an arm from where it’s falling asleep in the sweaty miasma between them and wraps it around Zach, pulling him closer and turning his head to kiss whatever body part’s in range. They lie like that for what feels like a long time. Chris’s high has long since wound down, replaced by the bone-deep somnolence that is weed’s blissful parting gift to him. He wants to drift off to sleep under a blanket of Quinto and not regain consciousness for many, many hours. 

“Fuck,” Zach says suddenly, like he’s just remembered something very important.

“Huh? What is it?” 

“I’m _starving_.” 

Which is how, instead of drifting off to sleep under a blanket of Quinto, Chris ends up awake and bleary-eyed in the kitchen, petulantly drinking a cup of coffee while Zach makes a grilled cheese with frightening single-mindedness. 

“I’m never letting you get away with making fun of my need to eat ever again,” Chris says. 

“Yeah, fine,” says Zach. He waves his spatula around dismissively. “I forfeit rights to the joke. It’s totally worth it.” 

“Make me one of those, would you?” 

They share both the sandwiches standing at the counter, four halves on one little plate. Their greasy fingers keep bumping and finally Chris grabs Zach’s hand and kisses him, buttery grilled cheese mouth and all. 

“So are we like...a thing now?” Chris asks, because he’s so tired he’s practically still high and that seems like an appropriate time for some new beginnings shit. And because watching Zach watch the frying pan and clearly think about how much he wants another grilled cheese is making Chris feel all warm and bubbly inside. He wants to be a thing really, really badly. 

Zach turns back to him and smiles sleepily. “If you want.” 

“Do you--” 

“Yes,” Zach says. “I want to be a thing with you, Pine.” 

Chris kisses Zach for a long time after that, and he seems to forget about making another sandwich in favor of sucking on Chris’s neck for about ten minutes. 

“Shit,” Zach says, pulling away and thumbing the incipient bruise. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” 

“S’okay. It’s cold out. I’ve got a scarf.” 

Chris has the vague thought that this probably merits an actual conversation the likes of which they’ve historically been pretty fucking bad at having, but he’s so tired and Zach’s mouth feels so good, and he’s got just about enough brain power left to orchestrate the placement of plates in the kitchen sink and the motor coordination required to get them back to the bed. 

_Tomorrow,_ he thinks. Because it’s a new year, and they’ve got tomorrows now.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lazy New Year's Day; more talking, and more not-talking.

The Zach Chris knows is an early riser, up bright and early most mornings seemingly heedless of whatever he’s done the night before. Because though he doesn’t much have to do it any more, Zach can hustle, and you can’t hustle if you’re sleeping. He’s the kind of person who rolls up infuriatingly cheerily, double fisting coffee and a green smoothie after a workout and two conference calls when Chris is still barely conscious. So it’s surprising when Chris wakes on New Year’s Day to find Zach curled up next to him, face mashed into Chris’s pillow. 

Chris is staring at him, contemplating the fan of eyelashes against Zach’s cheek or something equally mushy and overblown, when Noah pads into the room and whines pointedly. 

“Morning,” Chris says. Noah just whines again and pivots in a tight, antsy circle that communicates pretty effectively what he wants. Skunk is nowhere to be seen. 

“Are you the brains of this operation?” Chris asks Noah. Predictably, he doesn’t answer. 

Chris nudges Zach with an elbow. He rolls over. 

“Wuh,” Zach says without opening his eyes. 

“I think your dogs need to go out.” 

Zach sits up, rubbing both eyes with the heels of his hands. He makes a very displeased noise. “What time is it?” 

“I have no idea,” Chris says. He leans over the side of the bed and digs through his pants pocket for his phone. “Shit, it’s almost noon.” 

“Oh my god,” Zach says, kicking the covers off of them both and stumbling out of bed. “Babies! I’m so sorry. Fuck, I bet Skunk pissed in the living room.” 

He pulls on a hoodie and pair of yoga pants. The pants go on without Zach deigning to put on underwear first, which Chris elects not to say anything about despite the fact that Zach’s...not exactly poorly-endowed, and freeballing is just this side of indecent in Chris’s estimation. Zach’s grumbling to himself as he backs up to the bed to put on his socks. 

“I should’ve set an alarm; weed makes me sleep like a rock,” he says. Socks on, he pauses and turns to Chris, appearing to consider him for the first time. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Good morning.” He smiles at Chris, and it’s infectious. 

“Morning,” Chris says. 

Zach leans over and kisses him on the corner of the mouth.  
“I was going to wake you up with a blowjob or something,” Chris says.

Zach raises both eyebrows. “Now I’m really sorry.” He jerks his head in Noah’s direction. “You wanna come? We can get coffee.” 

“You sure? What if someone--” 

“I don’t know, it’s a holiday, right? I hope they’re either sleeping one off or home with their families.” 

“You say that like they’re not a pack of undead mercenaries,” Chris says. “Sallying forth at the scent of blood or whatever.” 

“Jesus, ‘sallying forth’. I am not nearly caffeinated enough, Christopher. Whatever, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll bring you back coffee. But I gotta go or I’m going to have to clean up a mess, so--” 

Chris thinks for a second. They made a deal last night, after all, and he supposes now is as good a time as any to start making good. “Take the dogs down,” he says. “I’ll meet you out front.” 

Zach grins outright at that. “Cool,” he says. He gets up to go, but before he does he bends and kisses Chris again, full on the mouth this time and with a slip of tongue. 

They settle into stride together once Chris makes it out onto the street. They don’t hold hands, but they walk in step, close together, so that Chris thinks that anyone who saw them might actually think twice. He looks at Zach stealthily when he’s busy with the dogs, looking to see if he notices or cares. But there’s no indication either way, even when an older couple, two guys, comes by them going the opposite direction. They look like the kind of couple who have grown into one another over the years, a matched set, the kind of couple Chris can’t really imagine being. Their gloved hands are clasped, and Zach looks up at them briefly and nods, but there’s nothing else in his expression to parse other than a polite familiarity. They’re walking a dog too, a sylphlike whippet, and Noah and Skunk look up interestedly until Zach tugs their leashes gently away. 

“You know them?” Chris asks, when they’re gone. 

Zach shrugs. “Not really. We’re like...a level below acquaintances. Our dogs sniff each others’ butts and we say things about the weather.” He glances back over his shoulder. “But they’re cute, right?” 

“Yeah, they are.” 

When they get to the coffee place, Zach waits out front with the dogs and sends Chris inside for their drinks and an egg bagel. Chris gets one of his own--no egg, though, just cream cheese. As he’s waiting for the coffees and Zach’s high-maintenance breakfast order, he turns to watch him out the windows. He’s looking across the street, collar turned up against the cold and sunglasses on. For a second, Chris thinks he looks like the kind of person you’d pass on the street and just assume was famous. He’s got that air about him, the one you see on every other too-cool person in New York. But then he leans down to say something to Skunk, and just from the look on his face Chris can tell his voice has gone all high and ridiculous. 

And then Chris remembers that Zach may seem cool, but is in reality going commando under a too-small pair of yoga pants and will undoubtedly take a picture of his egg bagel with a caption like _ouroboros_ and spend five minutes choosing whether it’s best represented washed out to within an inch of its life or supersaturated like a Seventies polaroid, and Chris will want to say _Dude, I will get you a fucking Holga if you want to experiment with that shit,_ except maybe instead of “dude” he’ll say “baby,” just because he can. And no, Zach is, in reality, not cool at all. Except for the fact that he is. 

“An almond milk latte, an Americano, and an egg bagel on everything for Chris?” 

He smiles at the girl behind the counter, and she smiles back. She’s got shadows under her eyes and she looks a little peaky. He doesn’t think she recognizes him. 

Zach practically claps with glee when Chris hands him the bagel, which he trades for Noah’s leash for the walk back to the apartment. 

“How are you this hungry? You had like seven grilled cheeses last night.” 

“I had one grilled cheese. Okay, one point five. I may have eaten part of yours. But whatever, I was hungry, and you only wanted one because I was making them.” 

“It’s cool,” Chris says. “I’m not going to hold a grudge on account of half a grilled cheese.” 

Zach’s quiet for a second. “I’m really glad you came,” he says, smiling at Chris almost shyly. “Seriously.” 

“Yeah, me too.” It never ceases to amaze Chris how someone with a mouth as filthy as Zach’s is in the bedroom can be so fucking bashful and sweet, but he guesses it might be a little like the cool/not cool dichotomy. 

If they weren’t schlepping coffee cups and leashes, Chris would totally grab Zach’s hand right now. 

Back at the apartment, they curl up and finish their coffee. Chris decides he’s made peace with the couch at this point; he runs a hand over the once beer-stained cushion like he’s patting a trusty steed. 

“I like it,” he says to Zach’s querulous eyebrow. “I feel like we’ve been through a lot together.” 

“That was one night,” Zach says. 

“There were other nights. I’ve crashed on this couch before, in case you’ve forgotten. Probably sorted through some thoughts and feelings regarding our friendship that I was obviously not mature or sexually savvy enough to understand at the time.” 

Zach laughs. 

“Plus, last night. I...I told you I loved you on this couch.” 

Chris bites his lip--too much? But Zach’s getting kind of blushy again, which is...doing things to Chris. It’d be doing more things if he didn’t have to pee; stupid Americano. 

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Zach says slowly. “If I ever decide to move on from this couch, you get first right of refusal, how’s that.” 

Chris wants to make a comment about how they’re never getting rid of the couch, but that implies a certain level of influence over Zach’s interior decorating choices, not to mention hinting at eventual cohabitation, and that really might be too much. Plus, where the hell is it coming from, anyway? He’s going to go ahead and blame the cute old dudes with the dog. 

“Sounds good,” Chris says, like he hasn’t spent an unnaturally long time contemplating two little words. “So what do you want to do today?” 

Zach takes a sip of his drink and smiles at Chris, and the shyness falls away like water.   
“I can think of some things.” 

“I bet you can,” Chris says. “But you know what, hold that thought. I’ll be back.” 

In the bathroom, Chris considers the fact that while Zach is very good at sex, he is considerably less good at talking about things he doesn’t absolutely want to talk about. He knows Zach thinks he’s this awesome communicator, but the past six or so months would seem to run counter to that, like Zach’s got a blind spot he may or may not know about.

Chris finishes up, washes his hands. He walks back into the living room deep in thought, wiping his hands on his jeans absently. 

“I have towels, you know,” Zach says. 

“Do you think you use sex to say things you have a hard time verbalizing? Or to, like, avoid verbalizing them in the first place?” 

Zach mimes choking on his coffee. “Uh oh,” he says. “Pine’s bringing out the big guns again.” 

“I’m just asking. You’re Mr. Self-Aware; I just wondered if you’d thought about it.” 

Zach screws up his face as if in thought. “Sure,” he says. 

“Which one are you saying ‘sure’ to?” 

Zach sighs. “I don’t know, probably both. Isn’t that just human nature, though? I feel like 90% of all human failings originate from preferring things that are easy and pleasurable to things that are...” 

“Hard and painful?” 

“Exactly.” 

“I don’t know, sex with you can be kind of hard and painful sometimes.” Chris sits back down on the couch and Zach whacks him lightly on the shoulder. 

“See?” Chris says. “Case in point.” 

“We’re not having sex.” 

“But you’re not denying it. And while we’re at it, Quinto...are you always into hard and painful?” 

Zach hides his mouth with the heel of a hand, face going a little red again. “Okay, tell me one time when we’ve done anything painful, besides the, uh, spanking.” 

“But you like to...be in control.” 

Zach considers. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.” 

“Have you always been like that?” Chris asks. 

Zach shrugs, crumpling his empty coffee cup and setting it on the coffee table. “I guess so. I don’t know, though, I might be more into it with you than I have been with anyone else. I think you bring it out in me. You just...” he shakes his head, smiling bemusedly. “I can’t explain it. You said it yourself; you like it when I tell you what to do. Maybe we’re just...compatible that way.” 

Chris shifts in his seat, feeling somehow exposed. It feels odd to talk about sex like this, out here in broad daylight, despite the fact that this is Zach. Zach, who at this point has seen Chris in more compromising positions across the board than pretty much anyone. 

“Yeah, I’d say we’re compatible.” He grins at Zach lopsidedly. “I mean, even when everything else was shitty the sex was pretty damn good. Even when we weren’t on the same _continent_ , the sex was good.” 

“What was it like with your doctor guy?” Zach doesn’t look at Chris as he asks the question. He’s kind of glowering at the empty coffee cup, probably wanting to get up and throw it in the actual trash. Chris gets up and does it for him. Just common courtesy. Definitely not stalling or deflecting at all. 

“It was...” 

He pauses on the way back from the kitchen, pressing his lips together as he thinks about it. He and Jeremy were never really a thing, not the way (he thinks, he hopes) that Chris and Zach are a thing. But it feels important to Chris somehow to have had experience with someone else, however brief and however low key. Would he have had that experience without Zach? Debatable, if he’s being brutally honest. But at the same time, it feels like his, and so there’s something about sharing it with Zach now that gives Chris pause. 

“It was good,” he says simply. “Different, really different. But good. He’s a cool guy.” Chris shrugs. He can tell that that wasn’t exactly what Zach was looking for, but he’ll have to be satisfied with it. 

“You said it hurt the last time,” Zach says, tone slightly accusatory. 

“What? Oh! No, it...it wasn’t his fault. He was fine. It was just--it just hurt. Like yesterday kind of, only worse. We had to stop. It was awkward.” 

“Well, I hope he wasn’t a dick about it,” Zach says. “Because you know that’s totally normal, right?” 

“He told me asses were fickle.” 

Zach laughs at that in spite of himself. “He’s right.” 

“Who knew there was such a steep learning curve.” 

“There’s not really,” Zach says. “There’s just...a different set of concerns.”

“Hmm.” He sits back down on the couch next to Zach. “I guess.” 

Zach scoots closer and puts his arm around Chris. “I’m glad you went out with that guy,” he says. 

“Jeremy.” 

“I’m glad you went out with Jeremy. I was...when you told me about it I was pissed, but even then I thought it was probably a good thing.” 

Zach’s getting that sort of overly soothing, let’s-talk-about-your-issues therapist tone to his voice, and it sends a flare of annoyance through Chris.

“What, to prove myself or something? Because--”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I obviously didn’t have the most altruistic perspective on it in Japan, but I...” He pauses, staring off into space like the right words will materialize there. 

“Remember in Berlin, back in the beginning? You said I was ruining you for anyone else. And I guess...as hot as that sounded in the moment, I guess it stuck with me for other reasons. I worried about it, you know? I still worry. Because yeah, the darkest and most selfish parts of me want you just for themselves, but...you can’t live with someone that way. You can’t pretend that possession is in someone’s best interests, even if it sounds all heady and romantic. It’ll always get twisted in the end, I think. And I didn’t want that.” 

“Okay, you actually are pretty self-aware,” Chris says. 

“Believe me, I’ve paid my dues,” Zach says. “It took a lot of slogging through a lot of shit to get to where I am today.” 

Chris doesn’t waste a lot of time on guilt--over the years, he’s come to recognize that if there’s a single truly useless emotion, guilt is it. But he can’t help but feel a residual twinge now, thinking about a younger version of Zach. Scared and confused and maybe a little self-loathing, because while their experiences don’t exactly map, Chris isn’t unfamiliar with the trifecta.

“So do you think I have to slog through shit too?” he asks. 

“I don’t want you to,” Zach says. “Why would I, out of some misplaced sense of ‘fair’s fair’? I want it to be easier for people, especially for you.” He leans forward, peering at Chris. “Shit, don’t look so surprised,” he says. 

“I’m not, I just...I don’t know. That’s a surprisingly healthy outlook for someone who was apparently so far up their own ass a couple months ago they said nothing we’d done meant anything. Just...it seems like a lot of progress, is all.” 

Zach chews on his lower lip. He tries and fails to be subtle about checking his watch. 

“When’s your call?” Chris asks softly. 

“5:30.” 

“We don’t have to do this now,” says Chris. 

“We kind of do,” Zach says. “When do you have to leave?” 

“Day after tomorrow. I’ve got some stuff to take care of in L.A. and then it’s off to New Zealand at the end of the month.” 

He makes his hand fly over to Zach, making airplane noises and coming in for a landing on his forearm. He slides his palm down and spoons the back of Zach’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. 

“Fuck, _New Zealand_? How’d I miss that?” Zach groans. “Don’t answer that question. But fuck. That’s fucking far, Chris! I mean, I’m glad you’ve got work going, that’s--” 

“Oh, because that’s such a novelty, me having work?” He’s kidding, mostly--Zach’s still using the therapist voice a little bit and Chris can’t resist--but Zach freezes and Chris immediately feels like shit for it. 

“That’s not what I meant--” 

Chris grins apologetically. “I’m just giving you shit.” 

Zach elbows him gently. “You’re not allowed to do that right now, okay? Jesus. Like we need to bring anything else into this.” 

They’re quiet for a bit. Chris watches the thin, silvery light play across the wall and bumps up against Zach with his shoulder, his arm, his whole body. He remembers all the times they’ve sat like this in interviews, usually for practical reasons but always just a hairsbreadth closer than necessary. Chris used to feel grounded that way. He wonders if Zach will be that for him again, or if it’ll always feel like it does now, all buzzy and off center. Fun, he thinks, but different than before. 

“But you realize,” he says slowly, the thoughts running threadlike through his brain and out his mouth. “You realize that everything’s already in this, right? If we’re...if we’re together, then we’re all in. Which means everything. All the crap, all the deep dark parts.” 

“So now’s the time to tell you about my kill room in the basement, then.” 

“I knew there was something to all that loving your characters shit. S’okay. Blood-spattered’s a good look on you.” 

“Hmm. Might be better on you, though.” Zach leans over and mouths at Chris’s throat. 

“Okay, yikes,” Chris says, shifting away as Zach scrapes teeth over what Chris can only assume is his jugular. 

Zach laughs. “Sorry,” he says. “I get a bunch of vampire stuff, did I ever tell you that? Mostly I toss it these days but sometimes I think it could be kind of fun.” 

Chris can see it. Zach would make a super sexy vampire. “Would you be a troubled vampire?” he asks. He does his best Bela Lugosi. “The brooding monster?” 

“Ooh, monstrosity as metaphor for sexual difference,” Zach says. “I like it.” He wags a finger at Chris. “You can take the boy out of Berkeley, but...” 

Chris blushes. “It’s not exactly a mind blowing piece of analysis. It’s like the overarching trope of the monster narrative. Well, just difference, maybe, not necessarily _sexually_ speaking, but let’s be real here--” 

He doesn’t get to finish the thought, because Zach leans over and grabs a handful of Chris’s shirt. “You’re hot when you talk like that,” he says, voice low and growly. He reapplies his mouth to Chris’s throat, and if Zach really was a vampire there’d be an almighty bloodletting going on. 

“What I’m getting from this is--ah--that you wanna take a break from talking,” Chris says. 

“Mmmm.” Zach’s hand is sliding under Chris’s collar, over his clavicles and down to tease at one of his nipples. 

“Hold on, you’re choking me.” Chris yanks his shirt off over his head and immediately breaks out in goosebumps. He yelps. “It’s fucking freezing in here!”

Zach springs up from the couch. “Let’s go in the other room,” he says. “I’ve got blankets.” 

“You’ve also got central heating.” 

“You really wanna fuck on that couch, don’t you?” 

Chris throws a pillow at Zach’s ass. “Get in the fucking bedroom, Quinto.”

Zach just dodges the pillow and laughs, his face in profile as he half-turns back to look at Chris, and he thinks it’s one of those moments you pull back from even as it’s happening, already trying to remember. 

Zach’s right, though, it is nice under the blankets. They take their clothes off and crawl into the bed, and Zach pulls the comforter over them. The fabric is a rich red, and sunlight filters through the fabric and dyes them both shades of ruby. Chris feels a little like he’s in a blanket fort, and he says as much.  
“Blanket forts are having a moment, you know,” Zach says. 

Chris just shakes his head and kisses him. Zach hasn’t shaved yet, and his stubble burns pleasantly as it comes into contact with Chris’s cheek and chin. He stretches out on top of Chris, all warm, and it makes Chris feel a little shuddery to be close like this, Zach’s face right there and his dick already pulsing at Chris’s hipbone. 

“What do you want?” Zach asks him. 

Chris doesn’t know. He shakes his head against the pillow. “Just you,” he says. 

Zach takes Chris’s hands, stretches their joined arms up over Chris’s head and finds his mouth again. Chris thinks about Zach’s hand at his throat last night and about what he’d said about filming the first movie, and he thinks about years of idle thoughts, of half-remembered dreams and omissions. Zach’s not the only one; Chris has them too. He kissed back in Berlin, after all, practically without question. 

The space under the covers is overheating already, humid and tropical-feeling, shot through with red light. Chris reaches for the edge of the blanket to pull it back, but Zach won’t let him, pressing his wrists to the mattress and kissing him and kissing him. Chris sighs into Zach’s mouth-- _fine, whatever_ \--and rolls his hips up against Zach’s, so they slide against each other. He can’t help but make a noise as his dick drags against Zach’s, their skin slippery already, probably with sweat, but Chris can imagine it’s dirtier than that, lube or precome like they’ve been here fucking for hours already. 

Zach scoots up a little and peeks out from under the covers to extract lube and a condom from the nightstand. The opening lets a draft in, raising fresh goosebumps on Chris’s skin and hardening his nipples to points. Zach ducks back down and runs a thumb over them one at a time, making Chris gasp and arch his back into the touch. 

“Interesting,” Zach says quietly, like he’s taking inventory. 

He shakes the bottle of lube once, flicking his wrist and thumbing the lid open, letting it flow out onto his fingers. “You like this stuff?” he asks, almost casually. 

“Huh? I guess,” Chris says. “It’s fine.” 

“Because if there’s something you like better, we can get it.” He’s gripping Chris’s hip with his free hand now, and Chris imagines he can feel each fingertip like a brand. 

“Mmm,” Chris says. “Whatever.” 

Zach furrows his brow, but Chris can’t tell what could possibly be so perplexing about lube, if there’s plenty of it and it’s about to be introduced copiously to his ass. “Zach--” he says. 

Zach bites his lip and reaches between Chris’s legs, circling his hole and pushing inside with his index finger. 

“More,” Chris says, almost immediately.

“You sure?” 

Chris nods, belatedly realizing that the visibility down here isn’t great. He yanks awkwardly at the covers, dragging them down and off so they can fucking see. If Zach notices, he does’t seem to care. 

“Yeah,” Chris says, letting the end of the word fray into a moan as Zach gives him what he wants, presses deeper, twisting his fingers inside Chris just right. Chris’s dick twitches and he arches up off of the bed, trying to shift down deeper onto Zach’s fingers. Zach slides them almost all the way out, then back in again, so deep that his knuckles brush up against Chris’s body. He knows because Zach makes a point of it, rubbing the back of his hand along the soft skin of Chris’s inner thigh. 

“Oh my god,” Zach says quietly. “Look at you take it, look at you open up for me.” He rubs at the skin under Chris’s balls with his thumb, pushing in against his fingers inside, reaching up experimentally until he finds the place that makes Chris’s dick jump of its own accord, makes him throw his head back and hyperextend over the pillow in some parody of eroticism. He doesn’t care how dumb he looks, though, because he feels so fucking good. 

“You want some more?” 

He’s past words, he thinks; he just nods and tries to spread his legs wider and let Zach in, let him slip a third finger inside him and press the three of them together to fuck Chris as a single unit, like something that could hollow him out. He wants to sob from the pressure of it, from the stretch of his ass and the way Zach’s moving inside him, slow rhythmic thrusts. He adds some more lube and the noises coming from Chris now have tipped right over into obscene territory, whether you’re talking about what’s coming from his mouth or his ass. He wonders abstractly if Zach’s got thin walls, but he doesn’t think the bedroom’s next to another unit anyway, and--

“Look at me,” Zach says. 

“Huh?” 

“Look at me; I want to see you.” 

Chris looks. It’s hard to keep his eyes open like this. He feels so exposed, like Zach’s literally holding all of Chris in his hands. Zach’s expression is warm, his cheeks flushed beneath the shadow of stubble. 

“Fuck me,” Chris says. “Come on, I need more, Zach.” 

“I want to.” Zach slides his fingers carefully out of Chris. He slides the condom on and kneels over Chris, lining up. “I want you to keep your eyes open,” he says. “Can you do that?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“I think you can,” Zach says quietly, and once again the words do something to Chris, change the tenor of the moment like they’re catalyzing a chemical shift in the air around the two of them. Because Chris _wants_ to do it now, wants to prove to Zach that he can, and it’s such a little thing when you think about it. Here between them, though, with everything else stripped away, Zach’s words loom. 

He pushes into Chris in one movement, slowly and unflinchingly, and when he stops he’s balls-deep and Chris is gasping, his arm flopping over his eyes. He has no idea how, but Zach has the wherewithal to reach up and take Chris’s wrist, moving his arm away. 

Chris feels a twinge deep inside, an ache that reminds him that they did this last night too and not gently, either. But today is different, because Zach is barely moving, letting Chris breathe around him. He’s asked for Chris’s eyes on him and he reciprocates, gaze trained on Chris’s face. Chris thinks he can see every movement reflected there. He stares at each line and freckle and furrow until his eyes lose focus and he has to blink them back again. Zach eases out of Chris and thrusts back in slowly, angling just right and nudging up against his prostate. 

“Oh god,” Chris says.

“Yeah, right there. That feels good, doesn’t it? Come on, keep looking at me. I want to watch your face. I want you right here with me, okay?” He does it again, taking Chris’s hips in his hands and rocking into him, filling Chris up completely. The pressure is intense. Unthinking, Chris splays a hand across the flat of his stomach; he imagines that he can feel Zach there, feel him in the back of his throat. When he hits Chris’s prostate again, Chris feels pleasure sparking through his whole body, like fire sheeting across a pool of gasoline. 

Zach wraps his arm around Chris’s right thigh and lifts it, tucking his hip into the space at the fold of Chris’s knee. Chris runs his foot along Zach’s back and smiles at the novelty of the contact, such a light skimming thing in contrast with the slow, blunt roll of Zach inside him. Zach’s got better leverage now, though, and has positioned himself perfectly to thrust into Chris over and over, so that that sparkling feeling catches and burns through him from head to toe. It’s hard for Chris to believe he was ever cold before; he’s sweating now, his whole body simmering. Zach’s hair has gone all stringy, clinging to his forehead, and it occurs to Chris that it must take a whole hell of a lot of self control for Zach to keep up this rhythm, because if he feels like he’s on a razors-edge he can’t imagine what it must be like for Zach. He’s breathing deeply, pushing into Chris on the exhale like he can breathe extra space into his body somehow, bring them even closer. The way they’re looking at each other, it’s really beginning to feel like they might be merging somehow, though Chris is aware how ridiculous that sounds even as the thought forms. He wishes he hadn’t thrown off the canopy of the quilt. 

Zach’s speeding up now, though, in spite of his best efforts. And in spite of his directive to _look_ , he’s looking away now himself, glancing down at the place where they’re joined. 

“Hey,” Chris says. Zach looks up again, looks at him and smiles, and it’s the purest thing Chris thinks he’s ever seen. 

“I want to make you come,” Zach says, like that’s the most exciting prospect in the world, and fuck if it’s not the hottest thing Chris has ever heard. Today, anyway. 

Chris swallows. He nods against the pillow, swish-swish of his head against the cotton. Even that small motion seems to vibrate through him. 

Zach thrusts into him again. “Just from this, though,” he says. “Without your hand.” 

Chris’s dick, heretofore neglected, has been bobbing against his stomach, leaking the smear of precome that’s matting the hair just below his belly button. Chris has momentarily forgotten it exists, which he supposes is a testament to how thoroughly he’s getting fucked. 

“I-- _ah_ \--fuck, I dunno if you can,” he says. He’s not going to dissuade Zach from trying, though. 

Zach leans down and kisses Chris, licking into his mouth as slowly and carefully as he’s handling the rest of him. Everything feels sensitized; the way Zach’s chest drags against Chris’s feels like torture, he feels so fucking full. 

“I love this,” Zach says at Chris’s ear. “I love to watch you take it. I want--” he sucks in a breath. “What if there was someone else here helping me fuck you? I bet you’d think you couldn’t take two of us, but I’d be there, and I know you’d be so good for me, wouldn’t you, Chris?”

The image hangs in Chris’s head, too vivid. He imagines himself surrounded, sandwiched between two bodies, and full, so full. “Fuck, yes,” he says. 

Zach is sucking Chris’s neck just below his ear, releasing the suction and murmuring against his skin. “I’d be so proud of you,” he’s saying, and it really shouldn’t seem so romantic to hear Zach talk about what amounts to Chris sleeping with someone else, but he’s starting to think that questioning this stuff is rapidly becoming a lost cause anyway. 

Zach slides his hands under Chris’s ass and starts moving faster, watching Chris’s face and probably cataloguing the way he goes all slack and stupid when he hits his angle right, dialing it in like he’s got, what the fuck, a level or a t-square or whatever the fuck precision instrument gets him specifically calibrated to undo Chris. 

Chris is close, so close, but it’s not going to happen; he needs something else, a way to alleviate all this pressure building up in him. A hole in the dike. 

“You’ve gotta touch me,” he babbles. “Or I do, or something. I need to. I need it, come on, Zach, please--” 

Zach’s breathing is ragged now and it seems to take great effort to nod and tell Chris, “Do it.” 

_“Oh_ , oh--” Chris feels like it starts before he even gets a hand on his dick, like just the awareness that he’s going to get to touch himself is enough to push him over the edge, and then he’s coming and his eyes are closing and he’s so sorry, Zach, but he just can’t help it. 

Zach buries his face in Chris’s neck, and so they’re both hiding there at the end, but it’s okay, Chris guesses. It’s reasonable. And Zach’s mouthing along his shoulder now in the aftermath, still twitching deep inside, so it isn’t as if you could miss him, and Chris thinks about Zach’s smile earlier. No, he decides. You couldn’t miss him if you tried. 

“Mmm,” Zach says after awhile, apparently coming back to himself. Chris can feel him softening. Zach reaches down for the condom as he slips out of Chris and flops to one side, kicking the covers off. “It’s all stuffy in here,” he says. Chris takes the condom from him and gets up reluctantly to take it into the bathroom to toss. He cleans himself up and brings a wet washcloth back into the bedroom for Zach. 

“Thanks,” Zach says. “I could’ve gotten it.” 

Chris kisses him. “You usually do,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. But I’m kind of surprised we even had sex this afternoon, if you want to know the truth. Thought you’d want to wait until after the play.” 

“Usually I would. I couldn’t restrain myself today. I wanted to take advantage.” He runs a hand over his face. “Fuck, I’m already getting used to you being here and it’s been, like, less than 36 hours.” 

Chris sighs. He settles back alongside Zach, resting his head on Zach’s shoulder. “I know,” he says. And he’s leaving in another 36 or so. He tries to remember what it was like before all this, if he missed Zach. He did, of course, but at random moments, not the all-encompassing way you miss someone you’re in love with. He’s never really done the distance thing with someone serious, and he doesn’t think he’s far off the mark when he assumes that that’s what this is. Part of him wants to ask, but then he looks over at Zach, his head tilted back against the pillow, his eyes closed. They’re taking a break from the hard and painful stuff, right? So let it last a little bit longer. 

They lie there for a little while, dozing. Eventually Zach’s phone buzzes and he rouses, propping himself up on an elbow. “Ugh,” he says. “Will you grab that?” 

Chris obliges. Zach reads the text and taps out a reply without a word. Chris watches his face and tries not to wonder who it is, because Zach’s not offering up the information and Chris is definitely not going to ask. He feels vaguely put out, and turns away from Zach altogether. His own phone’s out in the living room, he thinks, on the coffee table, or he’d come up with some message or other to check.

“Cool,” Zach says to the phone. “So, hey,” he says, setting it next to him on the bed. “I don’t know if you want to come, but I called in a favor and got you a ticket for tonight.” 

Chris swallows. He thanks his luckiest star that he didn’t indulge his moment of creeping, unfounded suspicion, because he’d’ve come off as the biggest fucking jerk in the tri-state area. As it is, Zach’s looking at him expectantly, kind of chewing on his lower lip with an expression of cautious optimism that makes Chris want to die. 

“Wait, seriously?” 

Zach nods. 

“Of course I’m coming, are you kidding? I’m coming.” 

“Yeah?” Zach’s not looking at him; he’s tracing the weave of the blanket with a fingertip in the worst impression of nonchalance Chris has ever seen. 

“Yeah, of course!” 

“You sound psyched about it,” Zach says, and Chris wants to cuff him on the shoulder and go _really?_ and show him his freaking calendar with the dates circled, except now that he thinks about it he’s not really sure there was ever an actual calendar with actual dates. Probably whatever color the notifications are on iCalendar, and a lot of mental red-pen circling. 

“I thought I wasn’t going to get to see it,” he says. “My schedule was nuts, and then we were...whatever we were doing, and I thought it’d be weird. I thought about coming anyway, just for the night if I had to, but--yeah. I really wanted to come. I really want to see it; I’ve been, like, reading your reviews and stuff. Is that creepy?” 

Zach doesn’t say anything, just reaches over and takes Chris’s hand. He turns his palm over and traces a heart in the center with his index finger. Chris swears he can see the outline flare in the wake of Zach’s nail, like magic. 

When he speaks again, his voice is thick. “Don’t ever stop being creepy, Pine.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris goes to see _The Glass Menagerie_ , and he and Zach talk through some practicalities.

The play is amazing. 

Of course the play’s amazing. Chris hadn’t expected anything less. But he also hadn’t expected the way he’d feel as the lights went down, as Zach--as _Tom_ \--stepped onto the stage and began to speak. He’s seen Zach’s work before, obviously, but never like this, never front and center, what feels like inches away and would feel that close even if Zach hadn’t managed to hook Chris up with an awesome seat. 

He’d wondered what it would be like to see the play, after everything. Now that he’s here he thinks it would have been torture to see it if they weren’t somehow okay. Because even as Zach disappears into Tom onstage, even as Chris follows him there, he keeps having these moments of realization: this is their _thing_ , this business of acting. This is what they do, and Zach is so fucking good at it that it stirs up all kinds of emotions in Chris like fine silt disturbed at the bottom of a river: awe and envy and excitement and wistfulness and pride. Mostly pride, though; Chris is gratified to note it, like he didn’t quite trust himself not to let envy win out. When you get right down to it, though, there’s really no one capable of giving this performance _but_ Zach, so there’s not much point in envy anyway. 

He’d come in a little late, per the instructions of a helpful member of staff, and had been seated right before the lights went down. Even so, he thought he felt a little ripple of recognition. Ultimately, he’d decided not to dwell on it. This isn’t about him, it isn’t about _them_ , and it certainly isn’t about a bunch of strangers’ brains whirring at the thought of the two of them in a room together. Chris only enters into this moment insamuch as he’s been given the privilege of witnessing it. 

At intermission, he finds an out-of-the-way hallway and hunches halfway up a flight of stairs. He doesn’t try to see Zach then, and he doesn’t stick around after the curtain, though there’s a moment as Zach scans the crowd when his gaze lands on Chris in the low light and his smile widens unmistakably. After that, Chris wants badly to find him in the crush of people. He could; he could go find that nice house manager who’d held his ticket for him and be ushered through to the dressing rooms. 

There’s a tradeoff if he does, though. If he does, he’ll be caught out. He’ll have to be on guard, and the moment he sees Zach again and tells him how wonderful, wonderful, wonderful he was...that moment will be run through every single filter Chris uses to separate his public and private lives. He’s done it before, of course. He’s tempered his reaction to Zach a thousand times, on red carpets and under studio lights, couched in words like _chemistry_ and _connection_ and _support_. Tonight, he thinks he’d rather die than do that, even a little bit. And so he takes a deep breath and sends Zach a text: _see you back at the apt,_ and he shoves his hands in his pockets and pops his coat collar and ducks out into the cold to hail a cab.

***

Chris is sitting on the couch reading when Zach comes in, the set of his body tentative right from the get-go, from the first step into the apartment and the less than wholehearted way he greets the dogs. Chris knows what this is about, so he’s up in a second, wiping sweaty palms on his pants as he stands.

“I took the dogs out,” he says. And then, “You were amazing.” 

Zach takes his hat off in a too-casual swipe. “Yeah?” 

Chris crosses the room in two strides, winding his arms around Zach’s waist and pulling him close. He’s cold, and there’s snow on his coat. 

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Like, ‘can’t really articulate it, my overly effusive praise will be meted out to you over several lifetimes’ levels of amazing.” 

“Lifetimes, huh?” Zach’s chewing on the inside of his cheek in a clear effort not to grin impossibly wide. Eventually, he abandons all pretense of not caring, because like all artists Zach’s got a hell of an ego. Chris is happy to feed it at this particular moment, because he can and because it’s deserved. So Zach beams, and Chris beams back. 

“Thanks,” Zach says eventually. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“I saw you at curtain call.” 

“I know,” says Chris. “I wanted to, like, shake the lady next to me and be all, ‘that’s my fucking boyfriend.’ I totally could’ve, I don’t think she knew who I was.” 

_Boyfriend_ , shit. Saying the word gives him an undeniable thrill, makes him feel about seventeen. He socks Zach in the arm gently, more a caress than anything else, knuckles soft against the felted herringbone of his coat. “That’s my boyfriend,” he says again. “Which is what I’m going to say when you’re sweeping up at the Tonys, obviously.” 

“Oh yeah? Are they going to, like, pan out to you in the audience looking all hopeful and shit?” 

He’s joking, Chris knows he is. But the visuals his words conjure gives Chris pause anyway. He thinks back to all that couching, all that carefully-worded praise. _Zachary does great work, and I’m so lucky to be a part of that on set every day_. True, always true, but never the whole truth, even back before all this happened. 

To go from that airy vagueness to standing up and rooting for Zach in public, on camera, as the person Chris likes best in the world--well, the route to that point seems to go via Everest for all he can imagine getting there. 

“Whoa, don’t look so freaked,” Zach says, too smoothly. “You’re the one who invoked the b-word.” 

“No, I wasn’t--” Chris shakes his head. “It’s not like that.” 

“Dude, it’s fine,” Zach says, pawing at his unruly hat hair, gaze darting to the mirror on the living room wall. “I get it.” He checks his watch. “You hungry?” he asks. And since it’s Chris, the answer is an irrevocable yes. 

There’s a vegan place around the corner from Zach’s that does 24-hour breakfast and is open despite the holiday, so they go there. If Chris wanted to be bitchy he could stage a protest and demand animal products, but he acquiesces in the name of making up for his mental hiccup back at the apartment. It’s really not like it matters, anyway, he thinks to himself as they look at the menu, facing each other in a cramped back booth. If the question of going public ever presents itself, it’ll be like a million years from now, anyway. And it’s a huge if, right? Huge. Huge like the plate of vegan French toast Chris devours while Zach looks up from his totally reasonable tofu scramble, shaking his head slowly. 

“What?” Chris says. “I’m supposed to be bulking up for this next thing.” 

“Maybe we should hit the gym tomorrow,” Zach says diplomatically. “Later today. Ugh, I keep thinking I’m used to this schedule and then it kicks my ass all over again. Might be because you’re here, though.” 

“Oh, thanks,” Chris says, around a syrupy mouthful of carbs. 

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Just that you’re...changing up my routine.” 

“Hmmph.” 

“Hmmph yourself. You’re the one who went into panic mode when I alluded to our being together six months from now.” 

“The Tonys are six months from now?” Chris asks innocently. “Hadn’t thought about it.” 

Zach snorts. “You’re a dick.” He stabs Chris’s last strawberry with his fork, dragging it through the amber pool of syrup before he eats it. 

Chris eyes the room. It’s late, and it’s New Year’s Day night. The restaurant is doing a brisk business anyway, probably as a direct result of both these things. Maybe it’s the hour or the hangover haze that seems to weigh down the dining room, but people haven’t seemed to notice their little corner, eyes trained on their plates or their dining companions instead of their surroundings. Chris takes a breath. 

“Can I come sit next to you?” 

Zach swallows the strawberry. “Huh?” 

“You heard me.” 

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Chris.” 

“I’m not--” 

Zach runs a hand over his face. “I’m not mad about earlier,” he says. “I just--I forget it’s new. Like brand fucking new, you know? And it’s really new for you; there’s--” He waves his hand, winces. “There’s all that shit for you to think about. So yeah, I get it, okay? And I don’t think you’re going to be too happy tomorrow if you come over here and then it turns out someone got out their phone after all.” 

Chris sighs. He’s right, of course. And Chris is somehow relieved that he’s right. That Zach, on this subject at least, has his head screwed on straight no matter how mixed up Chris feels. He’s not sure whether or not he should be ashamed of his relief or not. 

“Thanks,” Chris says. “I guess.” 

“You forget,” Zach says with a wry laugh. “I’ve had lots of practice.” He sets his fork down and wipes his mouth on his napkin. 

“Zach--” 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

Chris nudges him under the table. The lights are down pretty low, so even if they can’t sit together Chris can slide his leg between Zach’s and sit there like that until they get the check, until Chris fiddles with his phone for long enough to let Zach get out onto the street before Chris ducks across the restaurant and after him, before they walk home not holding hands. In the vestibule of Zach’s building he pulls Chris close and kisses him. The air in the cramped space is cold, but between them is a little bloom of warmth where their mouths press together. 

“I like it like this,” Zach says. “Like it’s always been. Just for us.” 

Chris thinks of Zach coming in earlier, of the look on his face when Chris told him he was amazing. Just for us. 

“Let’s go upstairs,” he says. 

Back in the apartment, Zach declares that he feels gross and needs a shower. He groans as he struggles out of his clothes in the bathroom. “You coming?” he asks, leaning over to test the water with the flat of his hand.

They kiss in the shower, up against the slick tile. Chris’s dick twitches to life, Zach laughing softly as he soaps Chris carefully, shaking his head under the slick of falling water. “I’m so tired,” he says. “I’m sorry. This is like, insurmountable right now.” 

“You’re losing your touch, Quinto.” 

Zach sighs. “I’m old, man.” 

Chris drapes his arms over Zach’s shoulders and pulls him close again, forgetting about his semi in the name of more kissing. They’re kind of pruny by the time they get out, and Zach looks like he’s falling asleep on his feet. Chris bundles him into the bed, gets him a glass of water. Zach gets thirsty in the middle of the night, wakes up and clatters around homes and hotel rooms looking for a drink like a bug that’s wandered inside in the summer. Chris climbs in next to him and settles, head on Zach’s shoulder. There’s a feather-light pressure at the foot of the bed, and Harold materializes at their feet. He regards Chris with a typically jaundiced feline eye.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” Zach says against the pillow. 

“I meant what I said, you know.” 

“Mmm.” Zach’s eyes are closed already, his body lax. “Thanks.” 

“And--I’ll be there,” he says impulsively. “When you win all the awards for this, I’m going to be there, okay?” Somehow, some way.

There’s no answer, and after a minute Chris sits up to find Zach fast asleep, mouth open, drool already darkening the cotton of the pillow in a little pool. 

_Still a promise_ , he tells himself, steadfastly ignoring the prick of that same relief he felt in the restaurant, when Zach talked him down and kept the booth between them. 

Chris wakes up early the next morning, brimming with renewed optimism. He’s up before Zach, which is saying something, but maybe Chris is screwing up Zach’s circadian rhythm after all. He sits up and stares at Zach for a few minutes, as if he thinks the sheer weight of his gaze can wake Zach up. Zach slumbers blithely on, though, and Chris doesn’t think he’ll be able to fall back to sleep, so he gets up and dresses, slipping outside with first one dog and then the other. After all that commotion, Zach’s still sleeping, and Chris’s stomach is growling. He thinks for a second, peers into Zach’s refrigerator, then grabs his wallet and Zach’s spare key and goes back out. 

There’s an overpriced organic market a few streets over, and Chris fills a green plastic shopping basket with food to join the eggs Zach’s already got at home: uncured bacon, a loaf of fresh bread, a couple of fancy muffins. He frowns at his selections--there should probably be something green in there, but he’s never been a huge fan of veggies at breakfast so he settles for a couple of softish pears and an anemic winter tomato. 

When he lets himself back into the apartment, Zach is sitting on the couch holding a cup of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. 

“I called you,” he says. “But your phone was out here on the coffee table. I thought maybe you went running or something.” 

Chris holds up his grocery bag. “Not that virtuous.” 

“Coffee’s on,” Zach says. 

Chris goes into the kitchen and pours himself a cup, then sets about cooking them breakfast. Zach is eventually drawn to the doorway, where he leans against the wall and surveys the proceedings, sipping his coffee and occasionally pointing out the location of a kitchen utensil. He’s not dressed; he’s in a pair of too-big pajama pants that slip down over his hipbones and a t-shirt that clings. His hair’s a mess, and Chris can’t stand it. He turns away from the sizzling pan on the stove top and moves in for a kiss, holding the greasy spatula out of the way. Zach smiles into it and they stand there making out until Chris has to check the bacon again. 

“Don’t burn it,” Zach says. “I like it kinda fatty.” 

“Gross,” says Chris, but he fishes half out of the pan anyway, leaving it to drain on a paper towel. 

They eat at the table, feet fighting for the same square of floor below. Chris has kicked off his shoes and runs his toe up Zach’s foot, into the long hollow between ankle bone and achilles tendon. Zach takes a bite of toast and grins at Chris with his mouth full. 

“S’good,” he says. “Thanks.” 

“Hey, you’re putting me up. And putting up with me, by the looks of it. Seriously, if you need to get back to your normal routine today that’s completely cool.” He takes a sip of coffee. Zach makes it strong, like Chris likes it. 

“Shut up,” Zach says, not unkindly. “I think I can manage for one more day. And...it’s been good having you here. Really good.” 

“Yeah, it has.” Chris sighs, scooting a crust through the last of his egg. “Zach, about last night--” 

Zach holds up a hand. “I told you, I understand,” he says. “Everything about this...it all has an extra layer, you know? I mean, of course you know, it’s not like you haven’t dated recently. But it’s not just celebrity or whatever--” 

“It’s us,” Chris says. 

“Exactly.” 

Chris wants to laugh all of a sudden. It’s so ridiculous, he thinks. So improbable. Zach’s that guy from the gym, that guy Chris saw around back in L.A. If you’d told Chris in, say, 2007 that on the second morning of 2014 he’d be sitting in Zachary Quinto’s New York apartment making moony eyes over breakfast and basically playing footsie under the table, he’d have...well, probably not laughed. Probably rapidly changed the subject and gone home to jack off confusedly in the shower, but the point stands that they’re fucking Kirk and Spock and they’ve been around the world and back together twice in service to their Kirk-and-Spockness, and now here they are, together. _Together_ together. 

“This is so fucking weird,” Chris says. 

“Tell me about it,” Zach says. He takes his final bite of bacon. “So, can I ask you a question?” he asks, swallowing. 

Chris nods. 

“When you were here back in June--” 

“Oh god,” says Chris. 

“No, just listen. You asked when I knew I was gay,” Zach says. “I should’ve...I never asked about you. When did you know that you...weren’t straight?” 

Chris considers. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s not like there was some lightbulb moment, you know? Although I do remember the first time I remember being attracted to a guy, if that counts.” 

“Pretty sure that counts,” Zach says. 

“Okay, so it was theatre, right?” 

“Time-honored tradition,” Zach says, nodding along. 

“Sophomore year of college, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_. We had, like, the hottest Puck ever. There was a lot of silver body paint and not a lot of clothing. I was a little shocked by the vociferousness of my response.” 

Zach grins. “Interesting,” he says, clearly imagining it. “So what happened, did you hook it up with Puck? Drunken shenanigans after the show on closing night, perhaps?” 

Chris makes a pained face. “Have you seen pictures of me in college? It was...well, let’s just say that once I got into the business afterwards it took a lot of manpower to wrangle this into submission.” He gestures to his face. 

Zach giggles, sticking out his lower lip. “Aww.” 

“Anyway, no. Puck was way out of my league. That guy was, like, the Kokopelli of fairyland in real life. I’m pretty sure he’s a professional muse or something now. Just like traipses around Paris inspiring people.” 

“You should track him down,” Zach says. “I bet he’d be all over it.” 

“Nah,” Chris says. “That’s okay. Besides, you can be kinda puckish when you want to be.” 

“Hmm. I’ll wear silver paint for you if you want. We can put a drape down.” 

Chris reaches over and squeezes Zach’s knee, bony through the soft flannel of his pajama pants. “It’s...I’m not sure if it makes it more or less strange, being friends first,” he says. “I feel like I want to say all these things, but...it’s been like a day, and they’re all things you don’t say at the beginning, you know?” 

“Say them,” Zach says. 

“Seriously?” 

“Say them.” 

Chris can feel his face get hot. He swallows past a lump in his throat that has nothing do do with breakfast. “I want to ask you about, like, publicity stuff. How we’d even deal with that. What would happen if we just said fuck it and I came and sat next to you in the damn booth. Or came to an awards show as your date. Or something. And it’s freaking me out, but like...if we’re going to really do this--” He shakes his head. 

“Chris--” 

“I know,” he says. “It’s crazy.” 

“It’s not crazy,” Zach says. “It’s just...it’s soon. And I think we should think really hard about what we both want before we do anything.” 

Chris feels slightly deflated. He’s not sure why; he didn’t really think Zach would be all gung ho about shouting from the rooftops. Take away the whole celebrity thing and they’re still two people who are barely together. 

Zach slouches back in his chair. “Who even knows about this, if you don’t mind me asking? Or about you?” 

Chris chews his lip. “Katie,” he says. “I kind of had to tell her after we ran into Joe; I lost it a little bit.” 

Zach winces at that, but Chris keeps going. 

“Some of my friends from college know I’m bi or whatever, or they know enough to put two and two together, but none of them know about you. And I...I didn’t tell Jeremy. It didn’t seem right.” 

Zach nods. “How’d Katie take it?” 

“Pretty well,” Chris says. “I’m not actually sure she was surprised.” 

“That you’re into guys?” 

Chris smiles down at the table. “That I’m into you. What about you, you tell anyone?” 

Zach makes a strange face, shaking his head. “Not really. Might’ve mentioned it obliquely. I mean, my friends knew I broke up with Owen, but I was a little hazy on the details. It just...I don’t know. Some of them probably wouldn’t have been surprised, honestly. I didn’t really want to deal with what they had to say about it.” 

“Chris _Pine?_ That guy?” Chris says incredulously. “I thought he was way into chicks, man. Plus he seems like kind of a douche.” 

Zach makes a moue of distaste at the words. “Nobody who knows you would--fuck, nevermind. Forget it. But yes, in the event anyone had talked any smack, I would have been obligated to attempt the nerve pinch on them, even back when we were on the outs. Things might have gotten awkward.” 

Chris’s face warms. Zach shoots him a soft look, and the rest of him warms too. 

“Well, thanks, for having my back,” he says stiltedly. “Anyway, I’m going to New Zealand in a couple of weeks; what are you doing when the play’s over?” 

“Berlin. _Agent 47_.” Zach mimes shooting Chris’s coffee cup and makes a little raygun noise. Chris tries to ignore the pang caused by the mention of Berlin. Stupid, amazing Berlin, on which they can lay the blame for all of this. 

“Right, yeah.” He groans. “Ugh, so we’re going to be on opposite sides of the planet for months, starting really soon. How do we even--are we going to see other people, or what?” _Too soon! Too soon!_ screeches a little voice inside his head. But Zach hadn’t cared about the boyfriend thing yesterday, and his face now is not shocked or judgmental, just thoughtful.

Zach shakes his head, leaning forward and resting on his crossed arms on the tabletop and regarding Chris curiously. “Are you new here, Pine? Dating in this business is the worst. We know this. This is not surprising.” 

The thing is, though, Chris thinks, is that for him it is new. He’s dated over the past few years, sometimes reasonably seriously. But this...this thing with Zach seems to have a tenor all its own already. The thought of going off to New Zealand with Zach’s blessing to hook up or date or whatever at will fills him with a sense of unease. If they go forward like that, he thinks, what do the last couple days even matter? He realizes belatedly that he’s staring wordlessly into his coffee cup, swirling the cooling liquid around the bottom. 

“You’re making a face,” Zach says. “What are you thinking about?” 

“Sorry,” Chris says. “Just...it’s going to suck. I have a feeling it’s going to suck worse than it has before.” 

Zach smiles at him, a small private smile. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t find that a little bit gratifying. But I guess the question, then, is how do we make it suck less?” 

Chris bites his lip. Might as well go for broke. He’s already in deep, after all. “I don’t want to see other people,” he says. “If we’re going to be a thing, let’s...let’s be a thing.” 

Zach is quiet for a beat. Then his smile widens, and Chris feels immeasurably better just from that. “Okay,” he says. 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

“Awesome.” Chris scoots his chair away from the table and turns it to face Zach. Their knees knock together. Then-- “Fuck it,” says Chris. He gets up and straddles Zach, feet on the floor on either side of the chair to take his weight. Only partially, though, which Zach’s cursory protests won’t let him forget. Chris kisses them out of his mouth, and yeah, the breakfast dishes aren’t getting cleared away for a long time. 

They end up on the couch, Chris still on top of Zach, hands sliding up under his shirt.   
“I knew you wanted to do it on this couch,” Zach says. 

“Uh huh. This was my master plan all along.” 

“Cunning.” 

“Yep. Up,” Chris says, yanking Zach’s shirt off over his head as he lifts his arms. Chris runs a hand down Zach’s chest to the waistband of his pants, slipping a finger inside to feel where the bunched elastic has left its imprint in the tender skin of Zach’s belly. 

“What’re you doing?” Zach sounds faintly amused, which devolves into a gasp as Chris reaches down and gets his dick out, tugging down on Zach’s pajama bottoms as he does so, Zach lifting his hips off the sofa to assist. 

“I told you what I wanted to do yesterday morning,” Chris says. He slides off the couch onto his knees on the floor. Zach makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and spreads his legs wider. Chris considers Zach’s dick, mostly hard in his hand, and leans down to kiss the head of it, just the lightest press of lips but enough to make Zach gasp. Chris notes this with satisfaction as he takes Zach into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip and then leaning forward to take him all the way in just short of gagging. 

“Oh god,” Zach says. 

Chris pulls back and looks up, trying to catch Zach’s eye and look as innocent as he can with a mouthful of dick. Zach laughs, even as he curls forward to get a hand around the back of Chris’s head and push him forward again. 

“Have you been practicing?” he says, with only the slightest catch in his voice to betray his compromising position. 

Chris hums his assent. Not that it’s exactly true, but he figures it’s what Zach wants to hear, like he wants to picture Chris kneeling in front of somebody else, the same kind of frustrated, voyeuristic attraction Chris feels to the concept of Zach fucking other people. 

“Yeah, that’s good. C’mon, take it,” Zach says. Chris lets Zach hold him there, just on the cusp of too much. He can feel the fullness of him in his throat, and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose, trying to still his gag reflex. Zach’s come off of the couch a little bit, lifting his hips and holding Chris’s head steady while he tries to thrust up into his mouth. Just the slightest shift at first, easy for Chris to deal with, but then Zach moves his hand up into Chris’s hair, closing his fingers into a fist and pulling, the sharp and tear-inducing pain a counterpoint to the achy discomfort in Chris’s jaw. 

Zach pulls all the way out, letting his dick bob shinily in the air before Chris’s face. “I love how you look like this,” he says. He reaches down and grabs a handful of Chris’s shirt, pulling him up and planting a toothy, wet kiss on his mouth. 

“Fuck,” Zach says, as if in disbelief. Chris grins at him stupidly, drunk on their closeness, on the sheer insanity of this whole thing. 

“Your _face,_ ” Zach says. “You’re all fucking flushed, god.” He takes himself in hand, tapping the head of his dick wetly on Chris’s cheek, dragging it along his lips. Chris follows with his tongue; Zach keeps himself just out of reach. 

“Come get me,” he says, offering himself back up when Chris opens his mouth. Chris sucks at him, nipping feather-light, just the barest hint of teeth, and Zach seizes his hair again and shoves into Chris’s mouth, back down his throat, Chris moaning as he’s forced to accommodate him. Zach is gripping himself at the base, feeding his dick into Chris’s mouth and back out again and smearing spit and precome on Chris’s face like he’s making some kind of obscene painting. He continues like this for long minutes, Chris focusing on breathing, one hand on the couch and the other gripping Zach’s calf.

“I want to shoot on your face,” Zach gasps. “Can I?” 

A strange jolt of pleasure lances through Chris at the words. “Yeah,” he says raggedly, frantically undoing his own fly, eager to touch himself. “Fuck, do it.” 

Zach grins maniacally and starts jerking himself, Chris letting his mouth go slack, letting Zach use it or not at will. He feels so good like this, pliant, his head buzzing. Chris’s dick feels heavy, aching with it, and he’s so close already just from Zach in his mouth, from Zach fucking his face and kissing him. He lowers his head and takes Zach in again, moaning around him as he comes over his own hand, looking up into Zach’s face. Zach watches him with wide eyes until the very end. Chris is sucking diligently on the head of his dick when Zach makes a high-pitched noise and pulls out. 

“I’m--” 

He can’t finish, but Chris understands. He turns his face up to Zach, an offering. He screws his eyes shut and then he feels it, wet and thick and warm over his mouth, his cheeks, his nose. He can’t help it; he smiles. He opens his mouth and licks his lips experimentally. 

“Oh my god,” Zach is saying. “Oh my god, oh my god, Chris, oh _fuck_ ,” and Chris wants to laugh. He flops against the couch, tilting his head back. Zach sighs, a long sob of an exhale.

“Oh god,” Zach says again, his tone slightly closer to the everyday. He chuckles, probably at Chris’s state. “Here, I’m sorry. Let me--” Chris feels rather than sees him get up from the couch. He must go into the bathroom, because Chris hears the sink running. Then he’s back, wiping a warm, wet washcloth gently over Chris’s face, turning him this way and that with light touches, cleaning him off. The cloth feels raspy like a cat’s tongue, and Chris makes a pleased noise.

“That was so hot,” Zach says, kissing along the cloth’s damp wake. “Here, let me.” He helps Chris up onto the couch. His knees are slightly grumpy, and his pants are pretty well ruined for the day, but that’s okay. They collapse together, barely vertical, a mess of limbs. 

“Yeah,” Chris says. “It was.” He’s not exactly sure why it was--by rights, getting a load shot in your face doesn’t seem like it should be. But the rawness of it, Zach’s obvious pleasure, that fucking _noise_ he made right before he came--yeah, it was hot. 

Zach moves, shifting so he’s facing Chris on the couch and leaning forward against his chest. He sets his hand against Chris’s cheek, running a thumb over his bottom lip. “I love you,” he says. “I...I don’t want you think differently, because of...because of the way I am with you.” 

“Huh? No way,” Chris says. “I like it.” 

Zach smiles, a little shyly. “Really?” 

“Of course,” Chris says. He indicates his splotchy jeans. “Liking it is kind of a prerequisite for that, don’t you think?” 

“I don’t know, you’re pretty new to this. No offense, okay, I just mean practically speaking. I don’t want you to think--I mean, it’s great that you’re into it. _If_ you’re into it. But we can tone it down if you want."

“Relax, okay?” Chris says, tightening his arms around Zach. “I’m into it.” 

Zach runs a hand over his face, letting himself slump against Chris. “Fuck, what are the odds?” he says. “Sometimes I start thinking about it and it feels like a dream. This whole last year, you know? The tour, Berlin. Everything.” 

“I know.”

“I’m so sorry, Chris. I was such an idiot.” 

“Yep. But that’s okay. You’re in remediation.” 

Zach laughs. “Idiot recovery? Idiocy management?” 

“Something like that.” 

Zach groans. “Ugh, come on,” he says. “Shower time. I wanna go for a walk or something before my call.” 

Chris would be fine with taking the whole operation to the bed for the next several hours, but he’s still feeling a little like he’s imposing so he’s happy to defer to Zach. He could probably stand to get some exercise, anyway. 

They end up on a long and rambling walk, leaving the dogs at home because, as Zach says, it’s cold. It is; it’s so cold that eventually Chris claims thin California blood and forces them into a coffee shop. Zach gets tea-- “I don’t want to be all shaky tonight”--and Chris gets another Americano. The coffee is scalding hot, and he manages to slosh it all over his hand and the table when he attempts to top it off with milk. Zach is momentarily concerned, but once he determines that Chris only has first-degree burns or whatever he lapses into amusement. 

“It’s not fair,” Chris says. “I swear I wasn’t always this clumsy. I think you make it worse.” 

“Sure, blame me. That’s fine. Except the entire cast and crew of a major motion picture begs to differ. But I will concede that I’m a supremely together person, so I guess that by contrast you might seem like more of a mess than you actually are.” 

Chris kicks him under the table. “You are pretty together, though,” he says. “In most ways at least. And now that you’ve got your head out of your ass regarding certain things, the sky’s the limit. You should write a self help book or something.” 

Zach spoons the teabag out of his mug and drops it on the accompanying saucer to inundate the square of napkin resting there. “You can write the foreword. And maybe the chapter about relationships.” 

“Ah, I don’t know,” Chris says. “Not sure I’m qualified to write a whole chapter. Co-author?” 

“Co-author,” Zach says. “Sounds good to me.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long distance sucks, news at 11.

“Hey. Hey, Chris.” 

Chris groans and rolls over, burying his head under the pillow. “No,” he says automatically. 

“Sorry,” Zach says. “It’s 5:30. Car’s coming at 6:00, right?” 

“Fuck,” Chris says, sitting up and squinting at the clock. “Yeah, 6:00.” 

He drags himself out of the bed, crawling over Zach to do so. He grabs his clothes and goes into the bathroom. He runs the shower, turning it up hot to counter the chill that seems to have collected in the apartment overnight. He’s barely awake as he soaps up, as he rinses the shampoo out of his hair and turns off the water. Dried off and dressed, he makes a face at himself in the mirror and steals a spritz of Zach’s stupid pheromone cologne. 

When he comes out of the bathroom, Zach’s dressed and in the kitchen, fiddling with the coffee maker. He’s in an old pair of jeans, beat-up Converse, and a ratty, oversized hoodie Chris thinks he recognizes from the first press tour. 

“You could’ve stayed in bed,” Chris says. Zach just gives him a skeptical look. He sniffs. 

“Are you wearing my cologne?” 

Chris coughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Zach’s watching coffee drip into the pot. “I don’t want you to go,” he says. 

Chris walks over to him and slides his arm around Zach’s waist, pulling him close. Zach slips a hand up under the hem of Chris’s sweater, resting the flat of his palm against Chris’s back. His hands are freezing, and Chris shudders involuntarily. 

“Sorry,” Zach says. 

“I don’t want to go,” Chris says. “Zach--” 

“Coffee’s ready, I think,” Zach says, pulling back. He pours the coffee into two travel mugs and hands one to Chris. “C’mon,” he says. “We’ll go downstairs.” 

They grab coats and hats. Chris shoulders his bag, briefly going back into the bedroom to say goodbye to the sleepy, unresponsive dogs. Downstairs, the city is already in motion, cold and early as it is. They don’t have to wait in the doorway for long before Chris’s town car pulls up, the driver popping the trunk and coming around to greet them, suit-clad and impeccable even at what feels like the crack of dawn. He relieves Chris of his bag and opens the passenger door to reveal the warm, dark tunnel of the back seat. 

Chris sighs. “Well,” he says to Zach. “I guess--” 

But Zach just shakes his head and gives Chris a little shove toward the car. “Get in,” he says. “It’s freezing out here.” 

“I’m--” He’s cut off by the slam of the trunk. The driver goes back around the car on the street side, opens his door, and gets back into the front seat. “I’m trying to say goodbye,” Chris says, a little louder now that their audience is gone. 

“You dumbass,” Zach says. “I’m coming with you. Now get in the car.” 

“Oh,” Chris says. He ducks through the doorway and slides over, Zach crawling in after him. They grin at each other in the low overhead light. It feels like a stay of execution. 

The driver glances back over the partition. “JFK, right? Which airline you flying?”

“Um, yeah,” Chris says. “United.” 

The driver nods, and the partition slides up, leaving them in relative privacy. The pre-dawn gloom outside and the tinted windows make Chris feel like they’re in a cave.

“But it’s all the way to the airport,” Chris says, as if they’re not pulling away from the curb already. 

“It’s not that long a drive.” 

“How are you going to get back?” 

“I’ll take the train. Now drink your coffee, Pine. I made it special.” 

Chris takes a dutiful sip. Zach scoots closer and leans against him heavily. It feels too early to make conversation and despite the divider their privacy feels tenuous at best, so they sit there in companionable silence. Eventually Chris finishes his coffee and wedges the travel mug between the outside of his thigh and the car door. He takes Zach’s free hand in both of his and holds it all the way to Queens. 

When they pull up to the curb at the airport Zach’s already got his sunglasses in hand, despite the fact that it’s not even light out yet. The driver gets out, circumspect or just efficient, and then they really are alone. 

“It’s not going to be for that long,” Chris says. 

“Yeah,” Zach says tightly. 

“And we’ll visit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And talk on the phone.” 

Zach makes a frustrated noise and leans in, grabbing Chris around the back of the neck and hauling him forward. His kiss is rough and sloppy, and Chris notes the burn of stubble and the sharp edges of teeth with a kind of perverse satisfaction. 

They pull apart, and Chris knows if he doesn’t get the hell out of the car and into the airport right now, he’s going to do something stupid like not get on his flight. 

“I’ve gotta--” 

“Sure,” Zach says, ducking his head. 

They get out and stand next to the car, Chris self-consciously sorting through the cash in his wallet for a tip, which he hands to the driver. “Thanks, man,” he says, taking his proffered bag and slinging it up onto his shoulder. And then there’s really nothing else to be done.

“I’ll call you when I get in,” Chris says. 

Zach puts his sunglasses on. He’s got his collar up and his hands in his pockets, and his nose and cheeks are rosy with the cold. He sighs a cloud out into the air between them. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and then he flinches slightly, moving as if to turn away. 

_Dammit_ , Chris thinks. All at once he’s moving, stepping down off the curb into the gutter and back up to gather Zach in his arms, because it’s still dark and who fucking cares. He clutches tight and angles his mouth just so, between Zach’s collar and his neck. 

“You’re going to miss your plane,” Zach says. 

“No I’m not.” 

He feels Zach slump a little in his arms. Then there’s a minute encroachment of tension, so that Chris knows Zach’s about to pull away before it happens. When he does, the distance between them feels leaden with the weight of all Chris wants to do. 

Zach straightens. His ridiculous sunglasses have slipped down his nose and he pushes them back up with his index finger. “Fuck,” he says. “We do this all the time. This shouldn’t be so hard.” 

“I know,” Chris says. “How about this. On three, okay?” 

Zach snorts. “Like ripping off a bandaid?” 

“Pretty much.” He takes a breath. He really, really wants to kiss Zach. “One,” he says instead. 

Zach swallows. “Two.” 

“Three.” Chris shakes his head. “That’s it, man. I’m out. The law of the countdown decrees it.” 

“Oh, well. If it’s the law.” Zach half-smiles, but then the corner of his mouth quirks downwards and he reaches up to wipe his nose with the back of his hand.

_Fuck, this sucks already._ Chris repositions his duffel on his shoulder and smiles at Zach one more time because it’s all he can do not to clutch at him again. “Bye,” he says brightly. 

Zach gives him a sharp little nod. “Later, Pine.” Then he turns on his heel and strides off down the sidewalk. 

“We’re hopeless,” Chris calls after him. “You know that, right?” 

Zach turns toward Chris again, walking backwards for a step, for two. “Totally,” he calls back.

***

Chris wakes up with a start to the blare of his phone.

He fumbles for it on the nightstand without thinking, grabs it and gets it up to his ear. It’s amazing, he thinks fuzzily, how quickly the status quo changes. Once, Chris might’ve screened this call, even knowing who it was from. Despite certain opinions to the contrary, Chris isn’t that down on technology. He’ll read a book over his tablet given the choice, but he’s a fast reader and it’s easier to haul an iPad on location than a library. He’s not the biggest fan of the expectation of access smartphones have ushered in, but his boyfriend is in New York and he’s half a planet away and he’s not exactly going to shit on the fact that he can pick up the phone and talk to him at--

“Zach? What the--it’s like--” He squints at the screen. “--seven in the morning.” 

“Shit, were you asleep? I thought you had an 8:00 call this week.” 

“I’m off today. It’s been rainy. We had to delay a little bit. It’s supposed to clear up tomorrow, though, so we’ll be back at it.” He yawns. 

“Sorry,” Zach says. “I’ll let you go back to bed.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Chris says, sitting up and rubbing at his eye with the heel of a hand. “I’ll get up. I’ll go run or something. What are you doing?” 

“Not a lot. I’m off today, too, as a matter of fact. I got a late lunch with Jesse and I’m walking back home.” 

“So what, it’s like 3 there? That is a late lunch.” 

“I slept late.” 

“Out late last night?” Which is two nights ago for Chris, but if he thinks about that too hard he’ll go crazy. 

“Why are we saying ‘late’ so much?” 

“You started it,” Chris says. He sprawls back across the bed with the phone pressed to his ear. “Tell me what you ate for lunch. And please tell me it wasn’t some quinoa bullshit.” 

“No.” Zach’s voice drops seductively, as if at a salacious memory. “I was really decadent and had this amazing pasta--” 

“No, c’mon.” 

“Yes,” Zach says. “Fresh, house made fettucini; this amazing cream sauce and proscuitto on top.” 

Chris moans. “You’re killing me, Quinto. That’s like straight up sex talk right there.” Gorgeous as the country is, he’s been too busy to investigate much of the food situation. Maybe later today; he can find some local crew and get suggestions. 

“Speaking of sex talk,” Zach says, “We need another Skype date.” 

Chris snorts. “Don’t you think that was kind of weird?” 

“No way!” Zach says unconvincingly, even though it totally was; it turned out it was impossible for them to see both faces and relevant body parts at the same time without feats of contortion, and while Zach’s o-face was hot it was markedly not the same as the full package. 

“What if we just had a phone date?” 

“Like now? I can’t, I’m walking.” 

“Not now. Some other time, obviously.” Something about Zach’s _duh_ tone irritates Chris, but whatever. It’s early and he has had neither food nor coffee.   
“I mean, if you want me to call back when I get back home I can.” 

“Don’t sound so dubious,” Chris says. “And besides, I said I was going to go work out.” 

“I’m not dubious,” Zach says. “I want your hot bod, Pine. Your hot Antipodean bod.” 

Chris giggles. “Gross,” he says. “But no, I want your bod too.” 

“God, that is so romantic,” Zach says, laughing. “I want you to whisper that to me while I jack off.” 

“Deal.” Chris is laughing even harder now, his momentary irritation forgotten. “Oh my god, I fucking miss you, you know that?” He does, too. He misses Zach with a deep and thoroughly unfamiliar ache. The feeling reminds Chris of a sore tooth; it hurts, sure, but he worries at it and he gets the impression he’ll miss it when it’s gone somehow. He carries it around all the time, but not in the same sledgehammer way he’d missed Zach before. Before he really knew what there was to miss. 

“I miss you too,” Zach says quietly. “But hey, I’m meeting this repair guy at my building,” he says. “The pipes are doing this awful gurgly thing, and--whatever, it doesn’t matter. I was just calling to say hi anyway.” 

“No, sure,” Chris says quickly. “Of course. When do you wanna have our date?” 

“Let me look,” Zach says. “I’ll email you, okay?” 

“Sure.” 

“Later, Chris.” 

“Bye.” 

Chris sighs out a big whoosh of breath, tossing the phone aside. 7:11. Running is the absolute last thing he wants to do. Out his window, the morning looks grey. He growls and burrows back into his pile of covers. 

That night, Margot and Chiwetel and some of the crew get on his ass to go out dancing. Chris hasn’t managed to accomplish much today, though he did go for that run, blasting the rap hits of the 90s and predictably thinking of Zach when any combination of dick and/or ass is mentioned. So by the time he gets the call, he’s actually kind of pumped up about it, which is saying something. He hasn’t heard from Zach regarding the schedule of their phone date, but he figures that’s okay. It’s strange now, scheduling things. Nice, sure, but strange. Chris feels all domestic about it, especially when he pulls out his phone at the club to check email and gets totally busted by Margot. 

“Who’re you so keen on that you keep checking your mobile every ten minutes?” she says, elbowing Chris in the side. 

“I don’t--I’m not--” Chris sighs. The club they’re in is loud, and somehow this seems the wrong kind of conversation to shout back and forth. He just shakes his head at her, but she seems to have moved on anyway, possibly identifying Chris as a poor choice of dance partner this evening. Which is fine; Chris isn’t sure how he’d handle dancing with a woman the way Margot’s dancing with the good-looking dark haired guy she’s approached on the floor. Chris retreats to the bar and gets himself another beer. He’s cutting himself off after this one, he decides. He’s been in New Zealand for two weeks, but he’s still playing catch up on sleep. He feels a little fuzzy from jet lag at the best of times and bone-tired at the worst, though part of him suspects he’s not just off-kilter from the time change. The past two months--hell, the past seven or eight months--have been a roller coaster that frankly shows no signs of slowing down or stopping just because they’ve rocketed out of the tunnel and into the light. 

He’s glad for it, of course. It’s just...tiring. He wishes he could take a break, just hole up somewhere for a month or two. Zach can come, as long as Chris gets like a week to himself to just stare into space for a while.His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he gets it out in an embarrassingly short amount of time only to see that it’s junk mail. He’s way, way too annoyed and disappointed by this fact. He takes another moody sip of beer. 

This is terrible, he thinks to himself. How do people function like this for long periods of time? How are people married and in this business? He thinks about Karl, whose family are based here most of the time while Karl’s off working. “It’s better in the long run,” Karl told Chris once. “It’s all well and good when it’s just two of you, but kids need roots.” Chris thinks he needs roots. Hell, he still feels like a kid much of the time, and fuck, that is such an odd realization to have right now. He shakes his head and drains his drink, setting it on the edge of the bar. He knows this song, and if he’s going to be a dumb kid he can damn well act like it instead of just stalking around the fringes of the room, watching his friends have fun. He’s pretty sure that’s what Zach would be doing if he were here. Zach never met a party he didn’t like. 

Chris works his way carefully through the grinding mass of people on the dancefloor until he makes it over to Margot, who’s left her previous dance partner for Sarah, a redhead from makeup who Chris knows a little by this point. She hangs around set and rubs more dirt on them between takes, which leads to plenty of joking around because it’s frankly pretty ridiculous all around. 

“Hey,” she says to him, into his ear so he can actually make out the words. “You clean up nicely.” 

He ducks in close to her. “I barely recognize myself without my layer of grime.” 

She smells good, her perfume kind of warm and spicy. Next to her, Margot shoots Chris a look and leans over to say something to Sarah, hand over her mouth so Chris can’t see. He makes a show of rolling his eyes, and Margot gives him a wide smile back.   
Who knows what that was about. But then the moment seems to pass and they all go back to dancing, Sarah turning around and backing up against him. Chris hesitates for a second and then lowers his hands to her waist. She’s wearing a tank top and tight jeans, the hem of the top riding up so that only about 30% of Chris’s hands are on fabric at any given time. At first he tries to move his hands higher up to keep them off her skin, but that just ends up seeming like he’s trying to grope her boobs so he eventually gives up, holding her hips and moving with the music. She leans back into him, her ass brushing against his body, and Chris feels uncertainty creep in. He can’t get Margot’s look out of his head, and he wonders crazily if it was some kind of test, despite the fact that that doesn’t make any sense. 

He’s just dancing, anyway. Zach would be dancing if he were here. Zach goes out with his friends all the time, right? He was out with his friends just the other night. Zach is a fun drunk and handsy as hell too; he’s probably ended up in positions far more compromising than this out on the dancefloor. Which...doesn’t make Chris feel that much better, come to think of it. He groans, but the music is so loud he can’t even hear himself do it, just feel the vibration in his throat. He brings a hand up to Sarah’s shoulder in what he hopes is a platonic manner. 

“I’m going to go,” he says. 

She gives him a fake pout in reply, but pats him on the arm and waves anyway. “See you tomorrow!” she says. 

Chris gets a cab back to the hotel by himself. He’s tired, but his mind is racing. If he were home he’d go for a run, but this time of night it doesn’t seem like the best idea. He guesses he could go down and use the gym, but he’s run once today already and he doesn’t want to overdo it. Zach’s already laughed enough at his expense over the infamous Groin Pull of 2011; Chris doesn’t feel like giving him any more ammo. Plus it fucking hurt, and he can’t exactly hobble himself in the middle of shooting. 

He picks his book up off of the nightstand and goes into the bathroom, sitting down on the closed toilet and untying his shoes. He kicks them out into the bedroom and turns the bath on, stripping off the rest of his clothes and leaving them in a heap on the floor where they’ll inevitably dampen, because it’s late and because he’s alone and because he can. 

He loads up on the fancy body wash, squeezing it into the stream from the faucet to foam over the surface of the water. Then he steps into the tub, sitting down and leaning back. He sighs at the feel of the hot water welling over him and reaches for his book, perched on the edge. 

Chris reads the same page over and over for about ten minutes before he finally concedes that it’s just not going to happen tonight. 

He’s been reading _Z for Zachariah_ \--the book-- to help get into the right mindset. Chris’s character isn’t actually in the book, but he’s got the script for that. He thinks he’s read the book before, once upon a time in the days when the Scholastic Book Fair was the highlight of Chris’s year and he’d bring home the catalogue and write out his choices on the tiny order form in a cramped, unsteady hand. Back then, his mom’s worst threatened punishment was nothing from Scholastic. He’s not sure if it ever actually happened. 

It’s been interesting working with such a small cast. When he’s in character, the set and the crew fall away, and sometimes he feels like there really are only three of them left. He’s been having strange dreams ever since he got here, dreams about the end of the world. Although the setting’s never as lush as it is here; he’s always in a greying, ashy wasteland. He’s hot, and his mouth is dry, and sometimes he thinks Zach is there too. Other times, Zach is who Chris is out there looking for, why he’s wandering the wastes in the first place, but morning always comes before Chris finds him. 

Chris sets his book back on the edge of the bathtub and lifts his foot out of the water, turning the hot water back on with his toe. He closes his eyes, reaching down between his legs to touch himself idly. He lets his mind wander, and--maybe surprisingly, maybe not--he ends up thinking about dancing with Sarah earlier tonight. The way she smelled, the softness of her skin, the curve of her hips and ass. He imagines pulling her close in the club, running his hands up her sides to cup her breasts through the thin cotton of her tank top, slipping his thumbs under the straps and working them down off her shoulders. He hasn’t thought about fucking a girl in a long time, not since England at the most recent. It feels different in a way he can’t quantify, and he wonders if he should feel bad about it, which in theory should be a clear “no” but is, in practice, more complicated. Chris knows fantasy is fantasy, but he also can’t imagine telling Zach about it. _Hey, I danced with a cute girl in a club and then jacked off thinking about it._ But maybe he’s overthinking, and Zach wouldn’t care. 

He makes a frustrated noise out loud, squeezing his dick like the pleasure will get him out of his own head. It does, mostly, although it doesn’t get Zach out. When he fantasizes, he still thinks of Sarah, but now Zach’s there too. At first he’s just a shadowy presence on the periphery as in Chris’s dreams, but then Chris begins to imagine him a more active participant, directing both of them, telling Chris how deeply to kiss, to suck on her nipples or part her thighs to eat her, to push inside her and make her come. He imagines Zach’s fingers working between the flexing muscles of his ass as he fucks her, opening him up and then draping himself hot against Chris’s back to fuck him, too. 

Before he knows it he’s tossing his head back and coming in pulses into the now tepid water, which he’s somehow managed not to notice until now but is suddenly less than comfortable. He sits up groggily, shaking his head to clear it. “That was fucking weird,” he says out loud. Then he hauls himself to his feet and drains the tub so he can take a shower without standing in come-water, which would be gross even for Chris. As he falls asleep later, he engages himself in a mental debate as to whether or not he should tell Zach about this new deposit in his spank bank, but he passes out before he can arrive at a meaningful conclusion.

***

Their respective schedules keep them busy enough that they don’t get to have their planned phone date until later in the week. Chris tries not to be grumpy about it; it’s just as much his fault as Zach’s, and the time difference is a huge pain in the ass, maybe the worst he’s dealt with since he’s been doing this, or maybe it just feels worse now because everything’s headier these days. Anyway, despite his best efforts, Chris manages to work himself up a nice head of pissiness, which manifests as a stupid disagreement as soon as Zach calls about whether or not they should Skype again instead of just talking on the phone.

“I want to see you,” Zach says. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen your face?” 

Chris makes a face in the bathroom mirror. “Um, since the last time we Skyped. And what, you don’t get Google Updates every time a new pap picture hits the internet?” 

“How do you even know what that is?” 

“My publicist told me. She’s got it set up for me. It makes me feel like dog with one of those shock collars.” 

Zach snorts. “Kinky. But no, sorry. I have actual pictures of you, gleaned from years of actual friendship, so I’m good without the internet’s latest and greatest.” 

“Don’t sound so self-satisfied,” Chris says. “Thought you might like to see me all shirtless and covered in dirt and stuff. Turns out the post-apocalypse involves lots of skin.” 

“You’re not making a very good case for not Skyping.” 

“Come on, we agreed, it’s awkward,” Chris says. “It’s not...it doesn’t make me feel any less like we’re thousands of miles away, so what’s the point? Plus last time I almost kicked my computer off the bed. We should just do the phone.” 

Zach sighs. “Fine,” he says. “That way you can fall asleep right after, I guess. Lose your phone in the bed and everything.” 

“What time is it for you again?” 

“Eight o’clock in the fucking morning,” Zach says wearily.   
“Shit, I’m sorry. We can switch next time, yeah?” 

“Hell yeah we’re switching.” 

“I mean, you could just sleep late,” Chris says. “Then we’d both be in bed.” 

“I could,” Zach says. “Unfortunately the dogs got me up this morning, so I’m all caffeinated already. But--” There’s a muffled sound on the other end of the line; Chris pictures Zach moving through his apartment. 

“There we go,” Zach says. “Back in bed.” 

“Where were you before?” 

“On the couch.” 

This fills Chris with unexpected warmth, and he smiles against his phone. He knows that this is how things are for people in their line of work, and that Zach would never begrudge him work, even if Chris was shooting on the moon. But part of him still feels, naggingly, like he’s at fault somehow, like he’s got something to make up to Zach. That Zach’s so easy about it all, so willing to give things a go despite all this initial inconvenience--it cheers Chris, makes the separation so much easier to bear.

“I can hear you smiling,” Zach says, and Chris knows it’s true because he can hear Zach smiling too. 

“You and that damn couch,” Zach says. He laughs. “Are you in your bed yet?” 

“Not yet,” Chris says. He gets himself a glass of water, squints at his face in the mirror again. The climate here is doing a number on his skin; he’s been plying it with various unguents on the advice of the makeup people. Thinking of makeup reminds him of Sarah, which reminds him of his fantasy from the other night. He shakes his head and turns out the bathroom light, padding over to the bed. The lamp’s on, casting a warm glow over the otherwise dim room. 

“Okay,” Chris says, sliding under the covers. “I’m in.” 

“Good,” Zach says. “Talk to me.” 

Chris sighs contentedly. It’s not like this is going to beat Zach actually being here, but if he can’t have that he guesses it’s a pretty good consolation prize. He finds himself missing the old days, though, late nights for him and even later ones for Zach. Even with Zach pretending for his sake, it’s not quite the same. But there’s a lot that’s different, he reasons, and on balance he’s going to go with this version of them. Chris is no expert, but even he knows they’re a fuck of a lot healthier this way. 

“What should I talk to you about?” Chris asks. 

“Mm, doesn’t matter. Tell me something from on set. Or, wait, didn’t you guys go out the other night? What’s the scene like there?” 

Chris laughs. Zach would care about Christchurch’s club scene. 

“It’s fun,” he says. “I don’t know. You know me, it’s not like I’m the best person to ask. And you’ve been here, you probably know better than I do.” 

“I’ve just been to Auckland,” Zach says. “In case you’d forgotten.” 

Chris hasn’t forgotten, although if Auckland has gotten a little mixed up with Sydney and Moscow and Mexico City and London--though not Berlin, never Berlin--he supposes that’s only natural. Plus it was almost five years ago, which is just crazy when you really stop and think about it. He swallows. 

“So, something interesting happened that night,” he says. 

“Oh yeah?” Zach sounds a little hesitant, and Chris has a second to ponder what exactly he’s thinking of. 

“I mean, not _that_ interesting. I--a bunch of the cast and crew were there, right, and we were dancing?” 

“Uh huh,” Zach says. 

“Yeah, so I was dancing with this girl--” 

“Sure you wanna go here, Pine? What happens in New Zealand stays in New Zealand, you know.” He’s joking, but Chris swears he can hear Zach’s voice tighten up a fraction. 

“Shut up, we were just dancing. I mean she’s hot, but--” _Shut up, Pine!_   
“But it was weird, afterwards? I came back here--by myself, okay--and got in the tub and, y’know--” 

“No, I don’t know,” Zach says innocently. “What exactly did you do in the bathtub?” 

Chris rolls his eyes, and Zach laughs at him like he can see Chris doing it. Maybe they should’ve Skyped. “I jacked off, if you must know.” 

“Please, don’t act like that wasn’t where this was going.” 

“Let me tell you the story!”

“Ooh, there’s a story? Let me settle in.”   
“Asshole. _Anyway_ , so lately when I’ve been jacking I’ve mostly been thinking about, well, you, right?” 

“Go on.” Zach’s voice has deepened, and it makes Chris feel a little squirmy already. 

“Well this time I started thinking about this girl--wait, is that--should I not be telling you this? Cause it’s not like I actually want to act on any of it, I just--” 

“It’s fine,” Zach says. “It’s fantasy, right?” 

“Um, right,” Chris says. “I just thought...I don’t know, does it bug you to think of me thinking about, um, women?” 

Zach lets out a long breath. “I don’t know,” he says. “If you...if it started to seem like you weren’t getting what you needed from me, then I might. But I think it would probably take a lot for that to happen.” 

“You seem pretty relaxed about it for someone who thought I was just experimenting.” 

“Okay, first off, I never said that--” 

“Yeah, you did. You called us my _grand experiment_ or something. I think it was when we were in London and we had that sort-of fight. Before you told me you wanted to stop hooking up when we got back to the States.” Chris doesn’t think, though. He knows. He can hear Zach saying the words like it was yesterday, that catty, cutting way he gets sometimes. Chris hopes he never has to hear that tone directed at him ever again. 

“Do you have this all written down somewhere?” 

“It kind of stands out in my memory, okay? And then you said--”

“Do we have to rehash this again right now? I’m sorry, for like the tenth time. It was a huge mistake, saying that. You know that, right?” 

Chris chews on his lower lip. “Yeah,” he says finally. 

“Good.” 

They fall silent, and for the first time since New York, for the first time maybe ever with Zach, Chris is struck with that awful mental barrage of SAY SOMETHING _SAY SOMETHING_ that he’s come to recognize as the hallmark of an uncomfortable silence. Identifying the feeling instantly makes it ten times worse, and he picks at the stitching on the comforter with something approaching panic. 

“Awkward,” he says finally, and Zach huffs an unconvincing laugh down the line.   
“Seriously. Look, Chris--” 

“I’m sorry,” Chris says. “I shouldn’t have harped on it like that. It’s just--it’s hard to know what are, like, normal relationship lines and what are...sexuality lines. If that makes sense.” 

“I think so. But I’m just a person, right? We’re both just people. So I don’t know if it’s really that complicated.” 

“Have you ever been with someone who was bi?” 

“No. But you’ve never been with a guy before. I mean not like a full on relationship.” Chris feels ready to bristle, but there’s no judgement in the statement, just matter-of-factness. Zach and his well-adjusted brain. 

“I...have not.” 

“So we’re both kind of even.” 

“I guess,” Chris says. “It still feels like you’ve got a leg up on me with this stuff.” 

“I think the point is that we both have shit to figure out,” Zach says. 

“It’d be a lot fucking easier to figure out if we could be in the same room while we do it.” 

“This is true.” Zach sighs. “But we can’t, so we just have to improvise.” 

“Why are you so matter of fact about it? When I think about you--shit, half the time I want to punch the wall or have some kind of nervous breakdown.” The other half, he’s deliriously happy and walks around smiling to himself like a complete psycho. His feelings about being in a long-distance relationship with Zach can thus far mainly be characterized as _extreme._

Zach’s voice rises and falls slightly on the other end of the line. Chris imagines him shrugging. “Look, before you I’d just gotten out of a relationship where we did the distance thing a lot. I think--I think this is a little worse, because we had to go through all that shit to get here and as soon as we did we got split up. But I don’t know, I just...it is what it is. It’s like we talked about that time, trying to appreciate the moment. Why am I in New York? I’m doing a play I love, having the best experience of my career. Why are you in New Zealand? Making this cool movie. If we dwell on how much it sucks to be apart we just take away from those experiences.” 

It’s so logical, Chris thinks. Such a healthy outlook, and something that grates in an immediate, kneejerk way. That he’s not exactly having the best experience of his career, that he’s not even sure how he’d answer if someone asked him what that was...well, that might be part of it, but Chris doesn’t really feel like analyzing his career trajectory right now. Chris is shit at living in the moment. There’s always something to look forward to, and if there’s not he’s casting about trying to find it. Right now, it’s Zach. Zach Zach Zach, when am I going to see Zach, when are we meeting up in Berlin, when am I done being so fucking far away. He probably reveals about a tenth of this inner monologue to its subject, because he doesn’t want Zach to think he’s any more nuts than he already does. But he fixates on things, he always has. Not that he’s fixated on Zach exactly. Well, maybe a little bit. 

“Are you there?” 

“Huh?” Oh, yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about what you said.” 

“I mean, I’m not a guru or anything,” Zach says, laughing a little. “That’s just what I think about it. And it helps me not...” 

“Obsess over things?” Chris smiles, stretching out on the bed and crossing an arm behind his head. 

“Focus disproportionately.” 

“God, you really should’ve been a shrink. You sound just like my mom,” Chris says.

“Really?” Zach sounds genuinely flattered; it’s actually pretty cute. And it makes Chris want to be close to him, in the ways they can be close right now, anyway. 

“Really.” Chris sighs. “Okay, can we put a moratorium on deep thoughts for the rest of this conversation?” 

Zach snorts. “Ready to get off, are we?” 

“No, that’s not--I mean, yeah, but--” 

“Relax, Pine,” Zach says. “I’m kidding. And that can definitely be arranged. It was the point of our date, after all.” 

Chris thinks he should maybe try and convince Zach that it’s not the orgasm that matters, that he’s happy just to hear Zach’s voice, but then again Zach doesn’t seem to care and Chris was the one who just called a halt to the heavy stuff. So he doesn’t say anything, just runs a hand down over his stomach to tease at the waistband of his boxers. 

“You touching yourself yet?” Zach asks. 

“Just my stomach.” 

“Hmm. Good.”   
“Tell me what you’d do to me,” Chris says. “If you were here.” 

“God.” Zach makes a noise in the back of his throat. “What wouldn’t I do to you? No, but if you were here, right this second? I’d fuck you. I mean, that’s a given, obviously, but I’m not sure I’d be able to wait long enough to--” 

“--To be careful?” Chris is stroking himself idly over his boxers. The contrast of the soft cotton with his growing hardness feels good under his fingers. He likes to work himself up like this. When he’s alone he likes to torture himself until he can’t stand it any more, conjuring up all kinds of scenarios, memories of things they’ve done. But having Zach right here is so much better, his voice in Chris’s ear sending shivers down his spine just as surely as if Zach were right next to him. 

“Exactly,” Zach says. “I’d get you in bed, or maybe on that fucking couch you love so much. I’d get your pants off; I don’t know if I’d even be able to-- _ah_ to wait for you to get your shirt off.” 

“How would you want me?” Chris teases himself through his gapping fly, gripping tight and feeling his own pulse. He closes his eyes, imagining Zach’s hands around his waist, directing him, moving him into position. Sometimes Zach likes to act like Chris is a rag doll, there to be molded and manipulated. 

“On your hands and knees,” Zach says automatically, clearly having given this much thought. “I’d stand; that way I could--” He lapses into silence and Chris imagines why, tries to picture Zach reaching down into his own boxers, unable to hold off any longer. The image makes him reach for the tube of hand lotion he’s got sitting by the bed, nice and unobtrusive in case someone ends up in his room of housekeeping decides to get interested. He lubes up his hand and fists himself, taking a long breath down the line. 

“What are you doing?” he asks Zach. 

Zach laughs, the breathless laugh of someone otherwise occupied. “What do you think? You think I could hold off, thinking about you like that?” 

“No,” Chris says. “It’s hot, it’s so fucking hot. God, I wish--I wish I could see you.” 

“Told you we should’ve Skyped.” 

That Zach can say “I told you so” in the midst of jacking off and still manage to sound like such a self-satisfied asshole doing it somehow only makes Chris miss him more. 

“Fuck off,” Chris says, moaning into that last word. 

“Shut up and jack your dick, Pine,” Zach says. “And think about me fucking you.” 

“Uhh,” Chris moans. “Yep, thinking about it.”   
“I like standing when I do it,” Zach says. “I like being able to move you however I like, being able to fuck you hard.” 

“Fuck yes,” Chris says tightly. “I love that, I love it when you make me feel it afterwards, the next day--when I visit I’m going to make you fuck me so hard I can’t sit normally for days.” 

Zach makes an unintelligible noise and they both fall silent, as if they’ve both been overwhelmed by the mental image Chris’s words have conjured. Chris thinks about those early days on the press tour, the way Zach seemed to operate like making Chris feel it was his main goal in life. How they’d go to interviews and Chris would have to smile extra big to disguise the wince that played at the corners of his mouth whenever he’d move to sit down across from the twentieth eager beaver interviewer of the day, Zach smiling back like they were all just sitting down to a pleasant little chat, like Chris’s ass hadn’t been reamed within an inch of its life hours before. 

Chris’s dick is practically throbbing; he hasn’t gotten off since that night in the tub, wanting to keep the achy, twitchy edge he gets when he doesn’t come on a regular basis. If Zach was here, Chris is pretty sure he’d pick up on it. He might even reassess his planned mode of attack, deciding to draw things out, drive Chris crazy with it. He imagines Zach doing just that, making Chris stand in the middle of the room as Zach, fully clothed--hell, wearing a suit, because it’s a fantasy and it’s extra hot--undresses him bit by bit, pressing kisses over the skin he bares, biting at Chris’s ribs, his neck--

Zach gasps into his phone and the sound sends a jolt of lust straight to Chris’s belly, making him tense. “You close?” Chris asks. 

“Yeah,” Zach grits out. “Can’t help it, thinking about your ass-- _ah, fuck_ \--you get me so hard, Chris.” 

“Come on,” Chris says. “I want to hear you come for me. Make me...make me feel how much you want me, even though I’m--” 

Zach makes a strangled sound, a high-pitched kind of whine Chris has never heard from him before. It sounds almost needy, and it shatters any attempt Chris might have tried to make at lasting longer than another minute or so. He arches upwards, imagining he’s moving under Zach’s rough, warm hand. He jerks his hips up and clenches his stomach muscles as the sweet, sharp knife-edge of his orgasm cuts through him. He frantically shoves his shirt up his chest as he shoots, both to get it out of the way and because he’s suddenly desperate to touch more skin, to picture Zach doing it, to feel himself and hope the sensations transfer somehow. 

“Oh,” Zach sighs, after a minute. “Jesus fuck.” His voice sounds a little muffled, like he’s rolled face-down onto the pillow. 

Chris laughs. “Pretty much.” He drops a cramping hand onto his chest, just missing an errant splotch of come. “Ew,” he says. “I’ve gotta get cleaned up.” 

“Me too. Here, hold on a second.” 

Chris sets his phone down too, going into the bathroom to towel off with a damp washcloth. He feels a pang--if they were together, Zach would do this for him, always sort of flushed and cautiously smiley like he still couldn’t believe his luck. 

“Hey,” Chris says when he gets back to the phone. “You there?” 

“Hi,” Zach says. “Are you good?” 

Chris stretches, shot through with refractory bliss. “Yep. You?” 

“Yeah. You really got to me there for a minute, though. I was planning on making you ask nicely.” 

“What can I say,” Chris says. “I’m just overwhelmingly hot, even a hemisphere away.” 

Zach snorts. “You know, I can’t even deny it,” he says. “It’d just be lying.” He exhales. Chris can hear him settling back down onto the pillows. “Oh, so I got some more info on my schedule in Berlin,” he says. 

“Yeah?” They’ve decided that Chris should come to Germany once he’s done filming in New Zealand. There’s a little bit of lag time; the dates don’t quite run into each other, between Zach getting there after the play closes and getting his bearings, but Chris is planning a quick trip to Australia and a week or so back in L.A. in between to kill time. He’ll be so tired by the time he gets to Berlin that he doubts he’ll be able to see straight, but he doesn’t care. It’ll all be worth it. 

“I think you could come like the third week in March,” Zach says. “We have a bit of a break before we move to Singapore and we could travel a little if you wanted.” 

“Hmm,” Chris says. “Or just camp out in the hotel the whole time. Whatever.” 

“Seriously? You wouldn’t want to go anywhere?” Zach sounds taken aback. 

“What? No, of course I would, but--” 

“Because that’s fine, I just--” 

Chris sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We can plan later, though, right? Because I’m really tired right now, and I can barely remember where Germany is on a map, let along things I might want to see while I’m there.” 

“Sure,” Zach says quickly. “Yeah, no. Sorry, I keep forgetting what time it is there. You should go get some rest.” 

Chris thinks Zach sounds a bit deflated, but maybe that’s just his imagination. Fuck, he hates the phone. Because if he asks, it’ll turn into a thing, a big stupid thing that could be avoided if they were in the same room. “I guess,” he says finally. “We’ve got a pretty early call.” 

“I’ve got a lunch meeting, and I have a bunch of emails to go through first,” Zach says, like it’ll help Chris to know he actually has something going on. It does, kind of, but it’s also kind of gutting at the same time. Chris had about three days of being the thing Zach had going on, and it wasn’t nearly enough. 

“Okay,” Chris says. “I’m going to pass out, then. Have a good day today. Yesterday. Whatever.” 

“That’s right, you’re calling from the future,” Zach says. “Goodnight, Chris. I, uh. I love you.” 

“Love you too.” The words still feel strange coming out, and they make Chris feel all self-conscious, like he should look around and make sure he’s alone. But they make him smile too, and when he hangs up with Zach and turns the light off he grins into the dark until he falls asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris goes to the _Z for Zachariah_ wrap party, and the rest is history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this thing on? 
> 
> Short chapter, but I kind of just wanted to get the ball rolling again. Blame/thank Artless for making me miss OD Chris and Zach enough to finish this part. I'm doing better at figuring out how to balance fandom and school so HOPEFULLY updates won't take three months to happen any more.

Chris tries to take Zach’s attitude to heart, but the fact remains that he spends most of the rest of his time in New Zealand stealthily counting down the days until they’re supposed to meet up in Berlin. Speaking of counting, Zach is down to a hands-worth of performances of _Menagerie_ , and with every day that passes he seems alternately more tense and more relaxed. He’s settled into his character in a way Chris can’t imagine, never having had the experience of such a long theatre run. 

Chris knows he’s looking forward to the end of the play, wanting a break-- “A beach,” Zach moans on the phone one night, in the middle of Winter Storm Juno or whatever--but that part of him is already mourning the loss of Tom, of the little family he’s built at the Booth since September. He talks about it with Chris a little, just enough to make Chris feel little pricks of jealousy at the knowledge that he can’t relate, not really.

_Aren’t you excited about Berlin though?_ Chris writes in an email. He means the movie, _Agent 47_ , not their Berlin, but if Zach misinterprets and subsequently reassures, that wouldn’t go completely amiss. 

_Sure, but I just think it’s going to be different. I know it’s going to be different, hell, it’s a freaking action thriller and I get to be the bad guy, just like always. It’s not going to be like this._

The end of shooting comes all in a rush, which makes Chris feel vaguely guilty, like he somehow sped up time with all his antsy hoping for this moment to arrive. Before he knows it, he’s at the wrap party, held at the little bar they’ve come to frequent, the rest of the cast and crew more so that Chris, because Chris spent his fair share of nights back in his room talking to Zach on the phone or penning the long missives they’ve taken to exchanging, wordplay on a heretofore unimaginable scale because they’ve both got unlimited time to impress each other. Chris is considering taking out subscriptions to several journals he remembers from undergrad just to keep up with the literary analysis thing they’ve got going on. He’s never interacted with anyone like this before, except of course for Zach, who’s now closed the play and jetted off to Germany to much performative gnashing of teeth about how much he needs the break he’s going to take when all this is done.

Chris takes a long slug of beer, letting Chiwetel catch his eye and wave him over to the group that’s sitting around a big table, swapping stories from filming and laughing uproariously at intervals. He joins in with about 80% of his brain, the other 20% percent happily engaged with the future. His flight to Sydney, a week or so to bum around beaching and doing nothing and only wishing Zach was there a little bit. Then back home, and then Berlin. He wonders if it’ll be strange, coming back to the place where it all began. He wishes they were going back a little later, making it a proper anniversary, but it’ll have to do. He wonders if Zach can find his way back to that club. 

“Who actually won the horseshoe tournament?” Sarah says to his left, evidently speaking to him. “It was Margot, yeah?” 

“Huh?” he says. “Oh, yeah. Of course it was Margot, man. Girl’s got an arm.” 

“She does indeed,” says Chiwetel, whose character had the dubious honor of being punched by Margot’s several times. 

He rubs his cheek for effect, and the group dissolves into laughter again, loose with alcohol and the cumulative fatigue unique to movie sets. It reminds Chris faintly of _Trek_ , but only in the sense that it doesn’t at all. He feels a twinge of soreness in his chest. He misses Zach, sure, but he misses all of the rest of them too. He wonders if it’ll be the same next time around, without J.J. 

Eventually, the party starts to wind down, people peeling away from the group in ones and twos and threes. A few of them want to go dancing, which Chris is definitely not up for. He’s tired; he’s got a free day tomorrow and then he’s got an early flight out the day after that. He’s warm; beer and camaraderie, all the bad parts of the past month and a half beginning to dissolve already. Chris can practically feel the experience condensing agreeably as he sits here. _How was New Zealand? Oh, it was fine. It was good._

“You coming to the next stop?” Margot asks, standing next to Chris’s chair. She stretches, arms up over her head, belly bared in a soft strip. She does a little spin to an imaginary song. “Don’t you feel like dancing?” 

Chris shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I’m pretty beat.” 

She sighs exaggeratedly. “You’re always pretty beat, Christopher.” 

The way she says his name reminds him of Zach, which makes him smile. “I guess I am,” he says. “Must be getting old.” He goes to settle up, giving his best to the owner and to his favorite bartender, a brawny guy named Jack who gives him a handshake that could probably dislocate his shoulder if Chris were a little less built right now. 

“You need a taxi?” he asks Chris. “Oh, no thanks,” Chris says. “I’ve got a rental. Uh, I mean, I hired a car.” 

“You want to be careful going back then,” Jack says. “They’ve got that drunk driving initiative on; been stopping drivers left and right the past few weeks.” 

“No worries,” Chris says. “I’m fine to drive. Just had a few beers.” And a big dinner earlier; they’d had a massive barbecue with the entire cast and crew, and jeez, he’ll be happy not eating for a week after that spread. 

Jack shrugs. “All right then.” He reaches across the bar to clap Chris on the shoulder. “Hey, d’you mind taking a picture with me before you go?” 

“No problem, man,” Chris says. “Come around here.” 

But Jack talks him into coming back behind the bar instead. Chris drapes an arm over the man’s shoulders and grins at someone’s phone, and when they inspect the shot afterwards for awkward expressions or closed eyes the Chris looking back at him looks tanned and pleasantly tired and, most of all, happy.

***

Six hours later, Chris has decided he never wants to look at a bottle of beer, a car, or a telephone ever again. The first two because they’re the instruments of this unfolding debacle; the third because calling people he cares about to deliver disappointing news has to rank as his all time least favorite thing to do. The worst of all of it is that the fourth thing Chris never wants to see again is his own stupid face in the mirror, and that, unfortunately, is unavoidable.

And he hasn’t even called Zach yet. He’s saved that for last, first running down the laundry list of the Chris Pine celebrity business machine, the team he sometimes tries to forget exists but for whom he now finds himself distinctly grateful. His publicist is quiet for a long moment, then snaps into action with the businesslike air that he loves her for. The same goes for his lawyer, who’s instantly calling up resources on New Zealand law while they’re still on the phone.

The consensus is that Chris should plan to stay in the southern hemisphere until his case goes to trial. Which theoretically dovetails with his plans, except for the fact that a leisurely vacation in Australia is now officially the last thing Chris wants to do. 

“My parents were thinking of coming out,” he says lamely to Melissa, when she asks if he’s planning to be there alone. He gets the impression that that’s a loaded question, but he could frankly not care less about that kind of thing right now. 

“Parents are good,” she says. “Parents are wholesome. And there’s no reason you have to be back in the states for awhile, right?” 

“I have this charity dinner in a couple weeks, I think,” he says. “But other than that, no.” He’d meant to bring up Berlin with her, but now’s clearly not the time. 

“Great,” she says decisively. “I’m going to make some calls, circle the wagons. But I think we’ll be fine. You weren’t pulled over for a moving violation, you were compliant.” 

“I’m—I’m sorry,” he says on impulse. She’s quiet for a second, and he hears her take a deep breath. 

“This is what you pay me for, Chris,” she says. “Now go. You sound like hell, and you can’t begin to deal with any of this until you’ve gotten some sleep.” She sounds a little like his mother, and the slight concern in her tone plucks at him. 

“Okay,” he says, his throat tightening embarrassingly. He punches “end” on his phone’s touchscreen and scrubs a hand down his face. _Zach,_ he thinks. He’s got to call Zach. And probably his mother, just on the off chance somebody talks to the press right off the bat. He really, really wants to take a nap first, but he doesn’t trust himself to follow through with the call if he does. Something about this feels pressing. He’s vaguely aware that sometimes you face crises in relationships, and sometimes the way your partner reacts to said crises can be telling, and if there’s some… _way_ Zach’s going to be about this, Chris really isn’t prepared to handle it. 

He closes his eyes and dials anyway. 

“Hey, baby!” 

Chris blinks, momentarily taken aback at the endearment. Almost immediately, he can hear the thump and grind of music in the background. He wonders who Zach’s out with—very good friends or strangers, most likely; it seems like acquaintances are the most fraught kinds of relationships for people in their line of work. Makes getting to the former category kind of fucking hard sometimes. 

“Um, hey,” he says. “Can you talk?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Zach says easily. “Lemme just…” 

There’s a pause, and Chris can hear the fuzzy sound of Zach’s hand over the phone, more thumping music before it fades away and Chris can picture Zach alone on a balcony or in a doorway somewhere. 

“Hey,” Zach says, voice pinched with cigarette smoke. Chris is viscerally reminded of another not-so-long-ago conversation, one that began with Zach smoking a cigarette and ended altogether more shittily than he hopes this one will. 

“Hey,” he says. He takes a breath. “Zach, something happened.” 

Zach’s quiet for a beat. Then, “O _kay_ ,” he says, guarded.

Fuck, spit it out. “I…I got arrested,” Chris says, all in a rush. 

Zach starts laughing. 

“Zach?” 

“No you fucking didn’t,” Zach says, voice dissolved by mirth. 

“Yes, I fucking did.” 

“Wait, you’re serious,” Zach says, voice thick. “Oh my god, are you serious, Chris? What the fuck for?” 

“DUI,” Chris says, his face hot. “It was so _stupid_ , they were doing this sting thing where they were just like camped out by the side of the road, stopping every car, and I was going back to the hotel and I swear I thought I was fine to drive, and—“ 

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Zach says. “When was this?” 

Chris’s mind is already miles ahead, back onto the issue of the Australia trip, of the stupid trial, of when he’ll get back to L.A. now, doing the math that hopefully still puts him in Germany at the end of next month. 

“Chris?” 

“Oh, what? Uh, last night.” 

“Last _night_? What time is it there? Have you even slept?” 

Chris rubs his eyes. His throat clutches, and he feels dangerously close to just melting down right here and now. He guesses it wouldn’t be so bad. “I don’t know. Morning sometime. And no,” he adds. “I wanted to call you.” 

“Oh my god, Chris!” 

“I’m sorry, okay? I know it was fucking dumb. But I swear I thought I was fine, I only had like three beers over, like, hours, and—“ 

“Chris.” 

“—and it’s fine, I talked to my…my people, and my lawyer thinks it’s not going to be a huge thing, but fuck, Zach, when it gets out they’re gonna be all over it and I don’t—“ 

_“Chris.”_

“What!” he sits heavily down on the edge of the bed, dropping his face into the hand that’s not holding the phone. 

“Are you okay?” 

Chris heaves a sigh, feeling like there’s a reservoir of fetid, shitty air filling him up that will stay there and swirl and fester if he doesn’t get it out somehow.

“No,” he says. “I mean, yes. But no.” 

“Fuck,” Zach says. “You have no idea what—I thought you were going to tell me you fucked that Sarah girl.” He laughs again, harsher this time. 

Chris feels disoriented. “What? No.” He’s vaguely aware that he should be pissed off, but he’s so tired that all he can muster is a twinge of hurt. “No,” he says again. 

“I mean, I know you wouldn’t,” Zach says hurriedly, obviously realizing too late that he’s said the exact wrong thing. “I’m sorry, I’m out, I’ve been drinking. I’m not thinking straight.” 

“Forget it,” Chris says. He swallows. “I wish I was there.” He sounds like a child, but he doesn’t care. 

“I know. I wish you were here too.” 

“Really?” 

“Of course I do. Now listen. I…I want you to listen to me. Can you do that?” 

Chris nods, belatedly remembering that Zach can’t actually see him through the phone. “Yes.” 

“You’re back at your hotel now?” There’s a note of trepidation in Zach’s voice, as if he thinks Chris might actually be calling him from jail. Which Chris had never actually been in, per se, but that’s neither here nor there. 

“Uh huh.” 

“And you’re free? You don’t have movie stuff to do?” 

“No more movie,” Chris says. “Last night was the wrap party; that’s why I was out.”

“Okay,” Zach says. “So I want you to take your pants off—“ 

“Zach, I don’t—“ 

“Shut up and listen, baby,” Zach says gently.

Chris toes off his shoes and steps out of his stale-smelling jeans. “Okay, pants off,” he says. 

“Good,” says Zach. His voice is lower, like he’s trying not to be overheard, but it’s also deepened and gone a little flinty. It reminds Chris of fucking him, and it’s a comfort and an exquisite point of pain all at once.

“I want you to get in bed,” Zach continues. 

Chris tugs the quilt back and slides in, relishing the tight hospital corners, the way the covers are pulled taut and he has to wriggle down into them. The cotton is cool against his skin and he shivers. He settles, pulling them up as far as they can go without compromising his ability to hold on to the phone. 

“You in?” Zach says. 

“Yes.” 

“Good,” Zach repeats. “That’s good.” He sighs, and Chris echoes him. He wonders if sighs are contagious, like yawns are. 

“I miss you,” Chris says. 

“Me too,” Zach says. “But look, you’ll be here soon. And we’ll make up for it, I promise.” 

“Tell me,” Chris mutters. He slides a hand down, pressing the palm flat against his belly. He can feel smooth cotton against the back of his hand in contrast with the warmth of the skin in front. He can feel his pulse, thudding indomitably. 

“Shh. Not now. Now you’re going to close your eyes.” 

“I…I wanted to talk about it,” Chris says. “The press stuff, and—“ 

“Tomorrow, okay? Or later today, whatever. But after you’ve slept. You’re wiped, Chris, I can hear it in your voice.” 

Chris can’t argue with that. Even he wanted to, he hasn’t got the energy, which just proves Zach’s point for him. He groans, but he lets his eyes drop closed. “You’re just trying to get rid of me so you can go dancing,” he grumbles. 

“Christopher, if you weren’t so tired you’re about to drop that phone, I’d stand here on this street corner and talk to you til the sun comes up.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

“I love you,” Chris says. “Go dance.” 

“I love you too,” Zach says. “Go to sleep. And call me when you get up. No matter what time it is, okay? We’ll talk about it.” 

“Mmm,” Chris hums. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Zach says. 

After that, Chris really can’t string two words together, so they hang up. And Chris tries to be soothed, he really does. But as he drifts off, all he can think of is how, exactly, Zach knows how it’s going to be.


End file.
